Outpost: A Story of Love, Betrayal, and Blood
by Doc Professor
Summary: The sequel to Road Trip. A zombie virus has wiped out most of humanity. Six years later, Luffy, Nami, Sanji, Robin, Coby, and Vivi are relocated to a private outpost near the New Jersey coastline. As they get settled into their new lives, they have to deal with their neighbors, the zombie hordes, and their own inner personal drama. Luffy/Nami, Coby/Vivi, Sanji/Baby 5
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

So here we are again. After all this time I've kept you waiting. You've returned to hear more of this story, haven't you? Eagerly awaiting the next chapter in the lives of these ridiculous survivors. Well I've been busy compiling a string of events that someone could quite possibly call a "story". That's what you want, isn't it?

So we left off with Law getting roped into something by Baby. Remember that from the epilogue? Of course you do, you've been reading and rereading your favorite story over and over again for all these months, right? So we'll pick up some time after that. About three months after that, actually. So, for clarification's sake, this is now a full year since the events before the epilogue. For all of you keeping track. Six years since Zombie Day, making everyone a year older by now.

I care about these kinds of details and you should too.

Summer was on the verge of giving way to autumn, meaning cooler nights, which meant Nami more often than not fell asleep and awoke to the warm sensation of her boyfriend clinging to her. His lanky arms wrapped around her frame, her head tucked neatly into his chest. This morning was no different. The rising sun peeked through her curtains, dimly illuminating her- THEIR bedroom. All this time and she still wasn't used to saying it, but it made her chest tingle every time she corrected herself.

She stirred awake, blinking her eyes to adjust to the light, bringing herself back to the waking world. She turned her head slightly. Luffy was already awake, watching her with his wide, curious eyes. He grinned, reflecting the smile spreading across her own face.

"Were you watchin' me sleep…?" She murmured.

He leaned in, pressing his lips against hers, a soft morning kiss, making her giggle quietly.

"You just looked so peaceful," he responded. His arm moved down from its position, wrapped around her chest, to her stomach, gently caressing the round baby bump. "I like when you sleep peacefully. It's how I know nothing's wrong."

She eased herself to sit up, laughing. "Why would anything be wrong?"

"I don't know! I don't know how babies work, I don't know if it hurts or anything!" Luffy protested.

Nami raised her hand, gently stroking Luffy's cheek. "Nothing hurts, and nothing is ever wrong as long as I'm with you…"

Luffy smiled at her, then closed his eyes and began leaning in for another kiss. Nami followed suit, closing her eyes, pursing her lips, and pressing against him. She could feel his warmth as his arm hooked around her back to support her and pull her closer.

And then Nami's eyes snapped open. She gasped sharply, sputtering long orange hair out of her mouth and sat up with a snap. She was still in her room. Her room, _only_ her room. She patted to her side, groping around for anyone next to her, and finding her bed unoccupied, save for herself. She flung the covers off of her body and frantically patted at her stomach. She exhaled a more dramatic sigh of relief than was probably appropriate. Her stomach was still flat as it should be, nothing growing inside of it.

"Oh thank God…" She muttered, dropping flat on her back and staring up at the ceiling. "What the FUCK."

Then came the sudden rapid-fire pounding at her bedroom door, making her yelp and scramble out of bed.

"NAMIIII! NAAAAAMIIIIIII! WAKE UUUUUUP! WE GOTTA GOOOOOOO!"

It was the voice from her dream, albeit far more excited and childish than the smooth-talker her mind had somehow conjured up. Luffy had a unique ability, a power that could only be used for evil. He would be awake whenever it was most inopportune for other people. If they were on a schedule, or needed an early morning, he would be in a comatose state of sleep and not even gunfire and the guttural gurgling of zombies could stir him from his rest. If it was a rare morning where Nami could afford to sleep in, Luffy would be wide awake at the crack of dawn, oblivious to the commotion he would make in her vicinity. This was one reason they did not sleep together often.

The other reason, of course, was that Nami still lived at home with her mother and seriously how lame would that be. Come on.

When Nami opened her bedroom door, Luffy's wild, grinning face stirred up memories of the warm smile from her dream. Even he could see the haunted look on her face and his grin vanished.

"What's wrong? You not feeling well?"

It's definitely not morning sickness, her mind snarked at her. "I'm fine. Just… Egh, what time is it?"

"It's time to go! We got a big trip ahead!" He grabbed her hand as he bounded into her room, twirling her around and then pulling her in for an excited kiss. "You're all packed, right!?"

"Yeah I am. Wait, are you?" She had to ask, because it would be just like him to get so worked up making sure she was prepared that he would completely forget to take care of himself.

He rolled his eyes, slightly offended at her innocent question. "Yeah! Duh! Of course I'm all set! I made sure I grabbed ALL my snacks! And my bat! I'm good to go!"

She nodded, taking his hands to make sure he would keep his attention on her. "And clothes? You packed up those too, right?"

He shrugged, "Yeah I made some room for those too," he said dismissively.

Nami still gave him a suspicious eye, but when he didn't flounder like he usually did when he was caught in a lie, she dropped the issue. "I'm gonna clean up, then. Can you bring my stuff downstairs?" She gestured to the suitcases packed and strewn about her bedroom floor.

Luffy gave her an overzealous salute. "Yes Ma'am!" He barked, stepping past her, giggling the whole time. Clearly he was more excited about whatever they were packing up for than she was.

Which is something I'm sure you're all wondering about. So now would be a good time to cover that, eh?

So things had been going well between Hancock and Bellemere. Really well. While we were off watching Luffy and Nami fumble around a relationship, the two leaders were hashing out arrangements. It turns out Bellemere's tobacco was pretty well received amongst Hancock's people. Which meant more frequent shipments going out to DC. Which meant Hancock and Bellemere were meeting up more often.

Normally this would be a good thing. But driving from Boston to DC can be hell of exhausting for whoever is making the trip. Considering they were making the trip a few times a month, you can understand people would eventually start grumbling about being the one who had to make the deliveries or pickups. So Bellemere and Hancock hatched a plan. They would set up an outpost, an area between both settlements that would serve as a dropoff/pickup location for supplies.

This new outpost would serve additional benefits beyond cutting each settlement's drive time in half. The outpost would be on neutral grounds for both of them, meaning they both got a decent territorial expansion out of the deal. Claiming new territory meant it couldn't go to any rival faction. Because they claimed dibs on it already. Even in the post-apocalypse, dibs remained a solid pillar of civilization. It could serve as a trading outpost too. Any traveling group looking to reach the ocean could stop there and barter for supplies.

Of course, outposts don't just spring up overnight. The two lady-leaders agreed to set up in a cul-de-sac in New Jersey, which, yes, is what was being built in the epilogue. Assembling the sheet metal walls that served as perfect zombie deterrents was the brunt of the work. Then there was reestablishing plumbing, installing the requisite generators and solar panels, and of course, deciding who would make the move to live in the outpost.

They decided that six from each group would be enough to maintain the outpost, as well as keep things fair and balanced. It should be pretty clear at this point who Bellemere's six were. Luffy volunteered before anyone else could, which meant Nami naturally wanted to go with him. Despite her mother's protests.

It didn't take long for him to subsequently convince Robin, Coby, and Vivi to come along. Their sixth would be a volunteer. Sanji, having seen the kinds of ladies that Hancock had under her rule, jumped at the chance to live with them in a relatively secluded area. On top of that he was a damn fine cook and was strong as an ox, so at least he'd be useful.

Today happened to be the day that both crews would set out from their settlements to start their new lives. So with all that exposition out of the way, let's check in on someone else. Vivi and Coby were loading up the last of their own suitcases and cardboard boxes. When Coby slammed the trunk closed, they heard a wobbling voice from behind them. "Oh, I know we just started getting to know each other, but I'm going to miss you two!"

Standing in the driveway was their neighbor, a single mother named Makino who had just been the sweetest woman to the young couple. She had helped them get settled in when they first arrived and now she was watching them go.

Coby laughed sheepishly. "Ah, it's not like we're never coming back! You'll see us again, Makino, I promise."

"You'd better keep that promise! I'm losing my two favorite babysitters! Just be careful out there, hm?" She leaned in and wrapped both of them up in a hug. "I'd be devastated to learn something happened to you out there. I don't know _why_ you want to go in the first place!"

"It's Luffy. He can be… persuasive," Coby said. Vivi nodded, agreeing.

"Once he sets his mind on something, it's best to not fight him on it. But I am pretty excited! I want to see what this outpost looks like!" She said, bouncing on her heels. Makino broke the hug only to frown at the two of them.

"An outpost in New Jersey is no place to raise a family, that's all I'm saying."

Vivi was still smiling. "We'll see what it's like when we get there. Thank you for everything, Makino."

There was one final check of the house to make sure everything was cleared out, and then they were pulling out of the driveway with Makino waving them off. Their next stop was Nami's house to meet up with the others.

Bellemere had Nami in a hug like an octopus with its favorite teddy bear in seven of its tentacles and its favorite knife in the eighth. You knew eventually it would let the teddy bear go, but trying to force it away would end with you screaming "Oh God oh God it stabbed me it fucking stabbed me help please someone".

"You be safe out there. You be safe and smart and you don't take any risks and if things start looking too dicey there's no shame in being a coward and running home," Bellemere was repeating as Nami tried in vain to pull away from her mother.

"I know. Mom, it's a day's drive away. It's not that far and there's gonna be walls and other people. It's not like when I was on the road, this'll be way safer."

"And you're sure about all this? You're absolutely positive that you really want to go and you aren't just doing this to fill some kind of… obligation or something? Because I don't care, this is one job you can skip out of."

Nami managed to look halfway over her shoulder, to Luffy piling up suitcases in the back of a van. Robin, Sanji, Coby, and Vivi were waiting with their own pair of vans, already loaded up and parked in the street in front of Bellemere's house. Ready to hit the road as soon as Luffy and Nami were loaded up. "Yeah, Mom. I'm sure. I want to do this."

Bellemere sucked in a breath and finally, finally let go of Nami. "Well… You know you can always come back and we can send someone else to fill your post," she said, more for her own sake than Nami's.

"And that goes for all of you!" She announced, pivoting on her heels and casually passing Nami off to her sister for their goodbye. "Vivi, when you end up pregnant, you can come back here. Your house'll be here waiting for you."

Vivi saluted and nodded. "Thank you, ma'am! Take care while we're gone!"

"Nami, when you end up pregnant, you come back home too," Bellemere said, briefly turning back to her daughters.

Nojiko tried her hardest to stifle her laughter while Nami turned a deep shade of red. "OH MY GOD MOM THAT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN."

"Yeah-huh sure," was all Bellemere said. "And Robin-"

"If I end up pregnant, I think every one of us is going to be surprised," she responded with her signature sly grin.

Luffy finished loading up the van and ambled his way over to say goodbye to Bellemere's family as well. His goodbye hug with Bellemere went well enough, but it was Nojiko who maybe grabbed him a little too tight. Like around the neck. It was less of a hug and more something like a chokehold.

"You take care of my baby sister, right?" She asked in a non-threatening but still absolutely threatening way.

Luffy nodded as best a person could when another person has their arm around their neck. "Y-yeah. of course. Wh-why wouldn't I?"

"I mean it. You look after her. If you hurt her, I'm coming for your ass."

He struggled against her, trying to push her away to no avail. "I-I won't. I'm not going to- Why would I hurt her?!"

Nojiko loosened her grip on him and grinned when he stared confused at her. Her grin flashed to a scowl and she pointed her fingers to her eyes, then back to him. Then the smile came back.

Luffy quickly decided the best course of action would be to get to the van as fast as possible. Nami was already in the driver's seat because there was no way in hell anyone would ever let Luffy take control of an automobile. Nami noticed how unnerved her boyfriend was as he buckled up. The end of the world is no excuse for not using your seatbelt. "Everything cool?"

"Your family is weird," was all he said. His eyes looked rather haunted, though.

Nami pursed her lips and shrugged. "Yeah, but we've been dating for a year. I would've thought you'd figured that out by now."

Sanji honked his horn, starting the engine of his van with Robin sitting in the passenger seat next to him. "Let's go, Nami! We'll never get there without your guidaaance~!" He called out in a singsongy voice he used as his form of flirting.

Nami pulled out of the driveway, waving and calling out last-minute goodbyes to her family, the two of them responding in kind. The three of them proceeded through the subdivision, Nami's van in the lead, like a really lame, super short parade until they reached the front gates. There, Nami leaned out of her window and called up to the current watchman. "AHOY THERE, USOPP! LOWER THE DRAWBRIDGE SO WE MAY JOURNEY TO NEW LANDS!"

"AYE M'LADY!" Came a voice from above. Usopp waved back from the balcony that Nami had previously been working at every single morning. She wasn't going to miss working guard duty, but she would miss all the quality time with her sister.

"CAVENDISH! OPEN THE GATES, OUR PRINCESS AND HER ENTOURAGE MUST LEAVE OUR KINGDOM AT ONCE!" Usopp continued, signalling his partner on the balcony with as much showmanship as he could muster.

"By your command, I sh-... Wait." Cavendish peered over the wall, breaking character for a moment. "Hold on, we got a few clawing at the door." He gestured to Usopp and then pointed down where he was looking.

"Ah, yeah, I see 'em. I got it," Usopp said, reaching into his back pocket for his slingshot, sliding a black ball into the pouch and pulling back.

Usopp was blessed with the upper body strength and eagle-eye vision to be an expert sharpshooter. He was also a resourceful man. He would rather spend retrievable ammo than waste a bullet, especially since he was also one of the guys who ran the bullet presses in the town. Instead, he'd use a slingshot and a collection of heavy black marbles to dispose of zombies from a distance. Enough power behind a shot could easily penetrate an undead's squishy rotted skull and when the coast was clear, Usopp could hop down and get his shots back.

So Nami and her party waited patiently for Usopp to clear said coast. She drummed the steering wheel while Usopp took one shot, then another… Then another… In the van behind her, Sanji rolled the window down so he could light up a cigarette.

A few more shots and he and Cavendish nodded at each other. "Alright, that takes care of that. Where were we? Oh yeah. OPEN THE GATE!"

"OPENING THE GATE!" Cavendish responded, pressing the garage door opener with a dramatic flourish, activating the mechanism that allowed them to leave Funkytown.

"THANK YOU! MAY WE MEET AGAIN!" Nami waved as she drove underneath the balcony. Usopp and Cavendish waved back at the entourage.

"GOODBYE, LORDS AND LADIES! GOOD LUCK ON YOUR JOURNEY! FARE THEE WELL!" The two of them watched until the vans were out of sight, and similarly Nami watched from the rear-view mirror until her town's gates were gone.

"And that's it…" She said to her co-pilot, who already had his feet on the dashboard. "Next stop, Little Garden Outpost…"


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Franky took a moment to admire his handiwork. He had always been the kind of man who took pride in building things with his own two hands. Even if those hands were mechanical prosthetics. Which he needed due to a pre-Zombie Day accident while in the act of building something with his own two hands. He was not one of those "zombie bite amputees" that were popping up. This was his own damn fault.

Still, today was one of those rare days. The kind of day where you could add the qualifier "damn" to your "fine day". He stood there on the front porch of his house, drinking his cup of coffee, and really took the town in.

Granted, it wasn't much of a town _yet_. There was only one other person but him living there. And the town consisted of a cul-de-sac that had been walled off with thick metal sheets, with only a single main entrance allowing entering and exiting. Seven houses in a circle, each of them empty except for the one he was using and the one his associate was occupying.

Franky was one of two people at the Little Garden outpost who had both worked the construction project and also volunteered to live there as one of Hancock's representatives. As such, he and his partner were the only two people currently living there. He was the perfect combination of eccentric in a speedo and tropical shirt, and handyman who could repair or build pretty much whatever he wanted. He was also built like a fucking pickup truck and he had a thing for loud ways of disposing of the undead. Even his prosthetic arms were painted in bright, flashy colors, with red stars painted on the forearms. If you were looking for someone to personify what Hancock's community was like, just look at Franky.

His partner was good old Baby 5, who as you may remember, was running security detail on the outpost's construction when we last saw her. Baby stepped out onto the front porch of her designated house and waved to Franky, calling out to him with a hearty "GOOD MORNING MONSIEUR FRANKY!"

"MORNIN' KIDDO! TODAY'S THE DAY!" He called back. She bounced on her heels to properly illustrate her excitement and started down the steps of her front porch to meet him at his house. When they were no longer within shouting distance of each other, Franky gestured to the walls around Little Garden. "Morning patrol?"

She nodded, following after him while he led her to the perimeter. They had been alone like this for a few days. With construction completed, the builders and patrolmen had gone back home. It was Franky and Baby's duty to go around the entire inner perimeter and make sure the walls had no structural damage. Breaches were unlikely, but it never hurt to be too cautious. They started in Franky's backyard and headed clockwise, occasionally pounding on the walls to see if there was any snarling or gurgling on the other side. The walls were solid steel plates, ripped from the sides of semi trucks or buildings, whatever they could find. They were welded together and riveted in place, held up with i-beams embedded in the ground. It would take a grenade to get through these walls. They wouldn't have much trouble with rotting hands beating themselves literally to the bone against it.

"Since when do you drink coffee?" Baby asked, glancing down at the mug in Franky's hand.

He shrugged, grimacing a little. "Since I ran outta damn cola yesterday. It's loaded with sugar and stuff, so it's still super sweet," he took a sip, shaking his head. "Just ain't the same…"

"It is a tragedy, Monsieur… Were zhere a Coca-Cola shipping facility nearby, I would risk life and limb to secure a 12-pack for you! Wizhout zhe slightest hesitation!"

Franky laughed heartily, clasping her on the shoulder. "I don't need you drivin' off on a super dangerous mission just to give me a sugar buzz! Appreciate the thought though."

Baby's empathy and self-sacrificial nature would be the death of her yet. She let out a weary sigh, mourning Franky's loss of preferred caffeinated beverage as he took another wincing sip of his coffee. It wasn't like he'd be without cola forever. "Empress Hancock'll send some of the homemade stuff up next time we get supplies. I'll just have to deal for a little bit."

Ever since Bellemere had partnered up with Hancock to produce cigarettes and tobacco for both communities, Hancock had pursued the development of other addicting substances to please her loyal subjects. This included cola, which is why Franky was so damn willing to repay her by working on the construction and maintenance of Little Garden.

They continued making the full circle around the walls, passing by the front gate. The front gate was also the only gate. The only way into Little Garden save for blowing out the walls the hard way. A solid slab of steel on rolling tracks, it couldn't be opened by hand. Instead, there was a button operating like a garage door opener that was only accessible from the inside. Someone had to be inside the outpost in order to let more people in.

The walls also had a balcony in a ring all along the inner side. Ladders were placed at intervals allowing anyone on guard duty to easily access the balcony from any given point along the perimeter. When Franky and Baby had circled around the entirety of Little Garden, Baby made the climb up one such ladder to stand guard near the main gate. She had brought a sniper rifle, among other assortments of firearms, and brought the scope to her eye. She scanned the horizon, eagerly expecting either the caravan of cars meant to populate the outpost or any sign of trouble. Secretly she was hoping more for the trouble than anything else.

Considering it's around a four hour drive for both Bellemere's group and Hancock's group, Baby would be waiting for a while. So while she sits there and waits patiently for _something_ to happen, I'll take the time to explain a little more about the Little Garden outpost.

It took about a year of hard work and dedication from both sides to to turn the cul-de-sac named Little Garden into the outpost named Little Garden. Not only did they have to get the walls up, there was also the matter of getting the plumbing operational, solar panels and generators to provide power, as well as stocking the seven houses with enough supplies to get by. Little Garden was also about a half hour's drive from the coastline, meaning they also had access to a fishing boat if they wanted something a little fresher.

When it came to supplies, the idea would be a biweekly delivery alternating between the two settlements. Wait, not biweekly. What's the one where it's every other week? That _is_ biweekly? Then what's it called when it's twice a week? You're kidding. Well that's just- you know what? Never mind. So it works like this: Bellemere sends a delivery truck out with supplies and then two weeks later, Hancock sends a truck, and then two weeks later Bellemere does.

What the hell is up with the English language?

The point is, this place was pretty well secure and all situated to allow the crews from both sides to live fairly comfortably. As long as they were all willing to cooperate and not cause any bullshit drama, they'd be all set for years to come. Which is exactly what could have happened if you all wanted this story to be over right now. In fact if you want you can just pretend it ends here and you can close the tab and move on. Everyone is happy and it all works out for the best

For those of you that are still here, I thank you for your commitment. It's about time for people to start arriving.

Baby heard the sound of engines running and scrambled to scan the horizon for the source. She looked between the houses of the subdivision, sweeping her rifle left and right searching for a target. The sound could belong to friend or foe and the prospect of either made her heart flutter. She'd either make new friends or get to shoot someone. Either way, she won.

The only downside of living in the middle of a subdivision is she didn't get a good look at the cars approaching until they were literally turning onto the street leading to the outpost. Three vans all driving single file approached and stopped in front of the gate. The driver of the van in front, who we know as Nami but Baby knew as Potential Threat, stepped out and waved to the woman that we know as Baby but Nami knew as She's Pointing a Sniper Rifle at Me.

"UH! HEY! THIS IS UH… THIS IS LITTLE GARDEN, RIGHT?" Nami said, her arms raised above her head.

"PER'APS! AND WHOM AM I ADDRESSING?" Baby asked, keeping the gun on her.

The van last in line opened its driver side door and Sanji hopped out, looking around eagerly. "I heard a sexy French accent, what's up?" He said, scanning the area for the voice's owner. Instead his eye caught the sight of a red dot traveling from Nami to the ground to his leg and then up his body until it was out of sight. He froze in place, a big dumb grin still plastered on his face. "Oh."

"TELL YOUR FRIEND HE IS TO STAY WHERE HE IS!" Nami expected the authoritative tone, but she didn't expect the hint of glee overlaying the command.

"Sanji, why don't you let me handle this?" Nami whispered.

"The floor is yours," he said, still not moving.

"WE'RE WITH BELLEMERE'S GROUP! I'M HER DAUGHTER, NAMI! THE OTHER FIVE ARE LUFFY, ROBIN, VIVI, COBY, AND SANJI HERE!"

"AND HOW CAN I BELIEVE ZHAT? FOR ALL I KNOW, YOU ARE RAIDERS WHO AMBUSHED ZHOSE POOR PEOPLE AND ARE POSING AS ZHEM! YOU COULD BE TRYING TO… HOW YOU SAY… INFILTRATE US!"

Nami hesitated. The sniper had a point, they didn't have much in the way of proof. She glanced over at Sanji, who shrugged. She thought, and then glanced to Luffy who was still in the passenger seat. He also shrugged, which was not unexpected. You'd have to be pretty desperate to look to Luffy for an idea.

There was a quiet whispered argument coming from the middle van. Baby couldn't hear it, but Nami and Sanji could. When it finally died out, an arm stuck out of the passenger side window. It waved, drawing attention, and then Vivi's voice cried out "PARLEY!"

Nami and Sanji could see Baby lower her guard. She brought her head away from the scope, but watched carefully as Vivi stepped out of the car. "Parley!" Her hands were above her head just in case Baby thought she was armed or something. "I know Hancock's people follow the rules of Parley, we have to negotiate until we settle on an agreement!"

Baby nodded sternly. She was right, of course. Empress Hancock would follow the rules of parley. In fact, Baby was there a year ago when…

And suddenly it dawned on her. "OH! IT IS YOU! ZHE SMART ONE WIZH ZHE BLUE HAIR!"

"The smart one…?" Vivi repeated.

"Ahhh yes yes! All of you look familiar now! Except for you," she nodded to Sanji. "I would remember such an 'andsome face~"

The grin that spread across Sanji's mug could have been seen from space.

"Yes yes! You were all zhere! You stood up to Empress Hancock, yes? And you! Zhe orange one, oh you are zhe one who promised us zhe tobacco plants, yes? It is all coming back to me now!" Baby lowered the rifle completely. "Wait zhere! I will open zhe gate at once! Ohhh zhis is so exciting!" She practically sang as she disappeared behind the waist-high wall in front of the balcony.

"Was she really there that time..?" Vivi whispered to Nami.

"Hell if I know. The only other one I remember is the clown who gave me relationship advice," Nami said.

The heavy gate door sprang to life, sliding on its rollers with a low rumble. Nami, Sanji, and Vivi climbed back into their respective vans and filed in once the gate was open wide enough. Once Sanji's van had passed the gate, Baby stuck her head outside, scanning the nearby area for any ne'er-do-wells or bitey-ones. When she determined the coast was clear, she hit the button again to shut the gate. She then pivoted on her heels, causing her skirt to twirl up,and faced her new guests.

The three vans parked themselves in the middle of the cul-de-sac and the six riders climbed out, stretching after such a long drive. Sanji was first out the door, eager to get a closer look at whoever it was that owned that accent and said he had a cute face. Baby met them in the middle of the street, bouncing on her heels with every step.

"Oh do forgive me for zhe hostile greeting! I am Baby 5, I work in security and defense! You can never be too sure in zhis world! You understand, no?"

"Completely understandable~" Sanji said, his pitch changing with each syllable, practically singing every word. "A beautiful lady has to protect herseeeelf~" he said as he danced toward her.

"WHOOOAAA! THIS PLACE IS SO COOL!" Luffy cheered spinning around to take the entire outpost in. "It's like a fortress! Coby! We get to live in a FORTRESS! With huge walls and everything!" He grabbed onto Coby's shoulders and shook him, trying to force him to understand how cool the outpost was.

"Funkytown had walls too, Luffy! Remember…?" He was only partially asking that rhetorically. It was entirely possible Luffy had forgotten he lived in a town with walls.

"Yeah but this is way cooler! It's way more enclosed and stuff!" We're all gonna be neighbors and see each other every day and defend the fort when bad guys or zombies attack!"

"Hey, thought I heard some kinda commotion goin' on out here!" Franky emerged from the door of his house, adjusting his sunglasses and ambling his way to the center of the street to meet the new neighbors.

Luffy studied the approaching figure, made special note of his prosthetic arms, and his face glowed with excitement. "AND ONE OF OUR NEIGHBORS IS A ROBOT! THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE!"

Coby's head snapped toward Franky's direction, an apology at the ready for Luffy's lack of tact. To his surprise, the man shared Luffy's enthusiasm. "YEEEAAAHH!" he cried out, raising his arms in triumph.

Luffy dashed towards him, fawning over his prosthetics like a kid with a Christmas present. Franky absolutely ate it up, striking flashy pose after flashy pose, like a Jojo character that didn't wear pants. Coby crossed his arms and watched from a distance. Luffy's ability to rip friendship from the jaws of awkwardness was a borderline miracle.

"I heard Luffy shouting, what's up?" Nami said, appearing behind Coby.

"He got excited because he saw a guy with flashy prosthetic arms and called him a robot."

"Uh oh."

"No the guy was cool with it. They're already friends."

Franky took a break from showing off to wave to Nami and Coby. "Hey hey! Welcome to Little Garden! Super happy to meet you guys! My name's Franky and I'm the guy who more or less designed this place!"

He extended a handshake to Nami who had to take a moment to figure out how to fit her tiny girl hand in his giant gorilla hand. "I'm Nami, we're the ones Bellemere sent? Hey did you tell your… French maid to threaten us?" She gestured over her shoulder at Baby, who was currently engrossed in conversation with Sanji.

Franky shrugged with a dopey grin on his face. "Nope! She just does that!" He looked over to Baby and Sanji talking, already beaming at the sight of strangers getting along.

"So, what did you do before all of this?" Sanji asked, unable to hide his own smile.

She was happy to answer, "Oh I was. DJ at a nightclub! Very successful, no? Zhat is where my name comes from! Baby 5, it was my DJ name. I would have been a gymnast, but I did not keep up wizh it. Not after I ended up viciously attacking zhe cheating bimbo who stole zhe gold away from me zhat one time..." Her tone suddenly turned harsh as she cursed her past. "I hope zhat bitch was devoured slowly…"

All Sanji heard was "I am French and flexible and bouncy". It took his brain a second to catch up to the violent bit of her response, but he quickly weighed in favor of ignoring it because she was so hot.

Robin pushed her way into Franky and Nami's conversation, already set on the task of unloading her van since it was clear Sanji was too busy to do it but no she got it don't worry it's fine, by calling out "Is it just the two of you? You don't have the other four hiding in wait, in case we make a wrong move or something?"

"Whoa!" Franky put his hands up in surrender. "Lotta attitude in this one!" His smile didn't vanish though. "Hey, I'm pretty surprised to say it, but you beat our guys here. Got no idea when they're arriving!"

Luffy's shoulders sank. "Aww… I wanted to meet them…"

"Aw, you'll get your chance, little fella," Franky said, clapping Luffy on the shoulder. "Bright side, you all get to pick where you're staying first!" He turned around and made a sweeping gesture at the seven houses around them. "Any place you want! They're ALL available!"

"If you are okay wizh roommates, zhat is!" Baby said, rejoining the group while Sanji dashed to the vans to frantically relieve Robin of unloading duty. "Monsieur Franky is staying in zhat house," she pointed at his. "And I am staying in zhat one!" She pivoted, pointing at hers.

"Oh! I'll stay-" Sanji started.

"I'll room with you, if that's alright," Robin said, cutting him off by slapping a hand over his mouth.

Baby nodded happily. "I would love a roommate! Zhe houses, zhey can get so lonely wizh just one person, no?"

"I totally agree. Baby, why don't you show me around while Sanji brings my bags in?" As Robin stepped away from Sanji, letting Baby lead her to their new house, she turned her head to flash the poor man the coldest fucking grin he had ever born witness to. He stood there, frozen in place.

Oblivious to Sanji's plight, Franky clapped his hands together. "Well! That's one of you guys down! Why don't I show the rest of ya the houses and you can pick yourselves!" The others, excluding Vivi, followed after him.

Vivi stood next to Sanji, leaning forward to look at his expression. She couldn't help but smile, even though she knew she shouldn't. "Wow. That had to hurt, didn't it?"

Sanji blinked a few times, letting the world come back into focus. "I just… She swept in out of nowhere. A drop-dead gorgeous… _French_ maid… And Robin, she just…"

"Are you going to be okay, Sanji?" Vivi was almost a little concerned. He looked pale.

"She told me she used to be a gymnast. Before all of this. A gymnast, who likes guns and swearing and smoking. She's… She's _perfect_."

At that, Vivi's face lit up in sparkles. "Waaaiiit, are you saying you like her? Not your normal thing where you hit on any girl with decent boobs, you actually like her! Oh my gosh, that's so cute!" She cupped her cheeks with her hands, watching Sanji suffer in front of her.

He grabbed her by the arms and stared into her eyes. "What do I do, Vivi? You're married, you have to help me out! How do I deal with this?! Before it's too late!"

"Uh, well.. First off, I don't think Robin actually intends to sleep with her to spite you. So you don't have to worry about her stealing your girl. Second, I'm going to give you some advice I heard when I first met Coby."

Sanji stared so intensely at her, she felt he could see her secrets.

"Whatever you do."

"Yes?"

"Don't. Screw it up."

Sanji stopped staring at her, and instead focused on staring into the distance. "Don't screw it up," he repeated. "Yes. Okay. Got it."

"Good luck, Sanji!" she said, pulling away from his grip to go join her husband in house shopping. Sanji stood there in the middle of the road, around everyone's luggage and vehicles.

Eventually it dawned on him that Vivi's advice was the relationship equivalent of being told to "git gud". Technically right, but of no real help to anyone.

"I'm so fucked."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The ironic thing was that, had it not been for Zombie Day, Nami would have never been able to afford to live in a house this nice with her boyfriend. A two story house in what she assumed would have been considered a "nice neighborhood"? Even if it was in Jersey, it still would have been way out of her price range. Not to mention it already being furnished. And she was getting it for free! Well, maybe not free, she reminded herself, seeing Luffy struggling to carry as many suitcases and boxes as he could through the front door. After all, she had gone through a lot, and Luffy had gone through even more, to get where they were today.

She made the necessary logical leaps to convince herself that she deserved this and then asked if he needed help with all the stuff he was carrying.

"Nope! I got it!" He said, wobbling a little as his balance shifted. He set down the stack of boxes with only minimal sounds of something maybe breaking. "This stuff all goes up in the bedroom I think!" He told her before darting back out to the driveway to get more out of the van. Nami studied a few of the boxes, confirming that Luffy was right, before scooping them up and turning around to head up the stairs.

Luffy was also thinking about the course of his life up to this point. Instead of considering it as a payment, he was focusing more on the dramatic increase in quality over the past year or so. If you read the last story, you'll remember Luffy used to live alone in the completely overrun and abandoned New York City. If you didn't read the last story, Luffy spent most of the zombie apocalypse alone and trapped inside the overrun New York City. He thought moving into the same town as Nami was an improvement, but now he'd actually get to live in the same house as her! Like a real couple would! He assumed that's what real couples did because that's what Coby and Vivi did and that was the only romantic relationship he could base his knowledge off of.

Luffy didn't know much about romance, but he tried his best with what he had. He knew what love was, of course. That part was actually easy to figure out. It was the details that he got hung up on. He knew there were certain things you were "supposed" to do, like hold the door open for her and carry her things. That's what TV taught him to do, but Nami told him he didn't have to do that, which confused him at first. He also knew he was supposed to hug and kiss her often, which wasn't hard to do, as she was easily the highest on the list of people he wanted to kiss. He liked how conveniently that worked out.

A shrill scream emerged from the top of the stairs, loud enough that Luffy could hear it all the way in the driveway. Which reminded him of the other thing he was supposed to do: Come running if he ever heard her scream. Granted, he would come running if he heard any of his friends scream, but with Nami he was supposed to run extra hard.

He tore his way up the stairs, slamming the bedroom door open to find his girlfriend standing with her hands covering her face and a deep red blush spreading across her cheeks.

"NAMI! NAMI WHAT HAPPENED?!" He shouted, looking around the room for any possible threat.

"Nothing! Nothing, everything's okay! It's fine go back downstairs…" She muttered through her hands.

"But I heard you screaming! Was there a zombie in here?!"

"No! No it's all fine! We're all cool!" She lowered her hands away from her eyes to peek at him.

"Then… Why'd you scream?" He asked, lowering his guard a little.

Nami sucked in a deep breath. "It was… That." She pointed a slightly shaking finger towards the bed. His eyes followed her finger until he saw…

"A centipede?"

"I wasn't expecting to see it and I was surprised!" Nami said, forcing every syllable in that angry way when a person wants to feel completely justified in their failure. "So I let out an exclamation of surprise!"

"You screamed," Luffy said flatly. He didn't take his eyes off of her as he walked toward the bed, only looking away from her to focus on the centipede. He picked it up gently between his fingers, making him a braver man than I, and resumed focusing on Nami as he carried it to the bedroom window. He slid it open with his free hand and tossed the offending monstrosity to its fate. If Nami thought Luffy understood what it meant to be condescending, Nami would have thought he was being pretty condescending.

He was only sort of making fun of her. He found her phobia for creepy crawlies hilarious, especially since zombies were way more threatening than a beetle or a centipede. He understood that as her boyfriend, it was his job to take care of the bugs, but that didn't mean he couldn't tease her about it in his own way.

Around that time they started hearing the trumpets.

A half hour or so earlier, Coby and Vivi were going through a similar process of unpacking in their new house. Both of them working together because that's what couples do after all, to unload the van one trip at a time. Just like Nami and Luffy, their house was also way out of their price range, considering they were both eighteen years old.

Vivi had gotten caught up studying the backyard, looking out the doorwall with a box in her arms. Before the construction, it had been one of those open backyards without any fences. Now of course it had the metal panels cutting off whatever had been the view before. Still, it was a bigger backyard than the one at their old house. The one back in Boston.

"Vivi!" Coby's voice snapped her out of her thoughts and she jumped, turning around to see him behind her, shifting the weight of the box in his arms. "You okay?"

"Oh, fine! Just looking around."

Coby grinned at her. "It's a nice place, isn't it? Bigger than the other house! I wasn't expecting something like this to be waiting for us when we got here!"

"It's a beautiful house, and the yard is amazing, even with the walls," she agreed. The walls weren't exactly decorated or designed with aesthetics in mind. Their purpose was to protect and they didn't need a fresh coat of paint to do that.

"Buuuuut?" Coby said.

She shook her head. "But? There's no 'but', it's fine!"

"You're doing that nervous thing where you bite your lip."

"I'm not biting my lip!" She said, biting her lip. After a moment of silence, she set down her box and ran her fingers through her hair. "Alright, fine. I'm just… Now that we're here? I'm wondering if this was the right decision for us to make…"

Coby seemed surprised. "Really? I thought you were totally on board for this! What changed?"

She shrugged, gesturing to the entire house. "This! I didn't expect all of this when we got here! It's beautiful! I mean, the walls aren't exactly pretty, but the houses and the yard and… We're by the water… Yes, it's New Jersey, but… I don't know, when we were talking about joining the others, I just always assumed it would be a temporary thing. This just feels so permanent."

"Wait, your problem is that… The place is _too_ nice?" Coby tried to understand. At this point in the conversation, it could go one of two ways. He wanted to keep Vivi talking. He hated confrontation, but he would rather settle issues as quickly as possible, rather than let them sit for a later time. However, he was afraid she would decide to table the issue for now, which meant that they would continue this discussion when she was ready, and he would have to stew in the meantime.

Vivi shrugged, "I don't know. It doesn't feel like a good place to raise kids. I mean, it feels safe and secure, but… There's only going to be twelve of us here. That's not much of a community."

Coby could feel his throat tightening, and it became harder and hard to get words out. Hopefully his wife didn't notice his voice cracking. "Y-yeah, that's true but-..." Something about her statement didn't make sense. "Kid _ssss_?" he asked. "Uh, whe-when did the plan change to kid _ssss_?"

"When we moved into an actual house and had real neighbors and a real backyard and a real screen door!" She sighed sharply. "We can't have neighborhood barbecues if we don't live in a neighborhood, Coby."

"We also can't really have neighborhood barbecues because it's a zombie apocalypse but…" Coby said

"You know what I mean! Look, we're already here so we might as well just keep unpacking and we can talk about this later." She picked up the box and turned to head toward the staircase.

And there it was. It had officially become something that would hang in the air like a mosquito until it was dealt with. Once Vivi decided they were done talking for now, it was nearly impossible to get the conversation going again. He was about to call out to her to continue the conversation anyway, when they both heard the trumpets.

Evidently everyone else had heard the trumpets. The eight of them had filtered out of their respective houses and gathered near the front gate. They were coming from a distance, somewhere in the subdivision. The Funkytown group looked confused, but the duo from Hancock's group seemed happy. Franky was grinning ear to ear and Baby was sparkling with joy. She scrambled up the ladder to the balcony overlooking the gate. "SHE IS COMIIIING!" She squealed.

"Who's coming?" Robin asked.

"That's Empress Hancock's latest song. The one she plays to announce her arrival," Franky explained. "I guess she's coming to drop off the rest of our group!"

"You mean she's coming here?!" Sanji gasped, similarly smiling from ear to ear in giddy anticipation. He also scaled the ladder to join Baby on the balcony. The two of them peered out over the wall, Baby shifting a little so she was standing shoulder to shoulder with him.

Vivi crossed her arms. "Wait a minute… I know that melody." She brought a hand to her chin and focused on the song being played in the distance. "That's… She's playing Prince Ali. That's Prince Ali from Aladdin."

"Are you sure?" Coby asked.

She nodded. "Just listen."

Coby focused on the song, silently mouthing the words. "Huh."

"I can hear it in the trumpets, but there's something else," Nami said.

"It's a Snoop Dogg track. She has trumpet players doing Prince Ali and she must have a sound system overlaying a hip hop melody. She's creating a live remix," Robin said.

"Ohhhhhhhhhhh" the entire group sans Sanji and Baby said simultaneously.

Baby already had the gate open before the procession had arrived. This allowed Hancock and her escorts to pass through without needing to stop. The scene felt very familiar to Bellemere's representatives. Right down to the pickup truck carrying Hancock's royalty tent thing. However, it wasn't the massive army they had encountered when they first met Hancock a year ago and she threatened to steal Luffy for her harem and make the others her prisoners.

That was a year ago, and they're all friends now, it's cool.

Hancock's truck was flanked at either side by escort trucks and behind her was a van. Her entourage consisted of the kind of eccentric Drama Kids one would expect Hancock to have. The gang could see the escort trucks had a driver and two trumpeters. The van in the back had tinted windows. Presumably to keep the remaining four a secret for dramatic purposes. They had evidently drove in formation the entire way, unlike Bellemere's people who just kind of followed the map. They were starting to feel inadequate in Hancock's presence, but that was normal.

Hancock emerged from her tent and the driver and passenger of the truck immediately leapt out of the truck and dashed to its side. They immediately fell to their hands and knees to create a small human staircase to allow her to step off of the truck bed and onto the ground with grace and authority that most people would only dream of.

With the music gone, the only sound being made was Hancock's heels clacking on the concrete as she stepped deliberately and purposefully to the front of the van. She faced the group. She scanned them all, stonefaced as can be.

The silence was shattered and ground to a fine paste when Luffy waved his hand eagerly and shouted "HI HANCOCK!"

The buttholes of everyone in the area save for Nami, Vivi, Coby, Robin, and Hancock herself immediately clenched up. Franky's eyes bugged out and his head jolted towards Luffy's direction. However, instead of casting a rain of righteous hellfire, Hancock merely smiled, her cheeks going a faint shade of pink, and she waved her fingers coyly. "Hello, Luffy~ I'm so glad you're here~"

The entire group relaxed, but not without some hesitation. "Of course! This is like the COOLEST PLACE EVER! I wouldn't miss it for the world!" Luffy shouted. He was well aware that Hancock pretty much had a thing for him, and that usually people would feel awkward about that, but Luffy didn't see a reason for that.

"Ahhh~ You're so cute, Luffy~" she sang. When her gaze shifted to Nami, the stoneface returned and all those shoujo bubbles vanished in an instant. "Where's your mother?"

"What? Oh! Mom didn't come. Was she supposed to?"

Hancock huffed. "We hadn't agreed on anything, no, but I assumed she would be here to see her daughter off. Now I'll have to drive all the way up there to commemorate this event." She let out an overly dramatic sigh. "I never predicted being her friend could be so inconvenient. I had planned for a ceremony of sorts but now it seems I'll have to cut it short."

She stood up straight and loudly announced "PRESENTING! THE VOLUNTEER STAFF OF OUTPOST LITTLE GARDEN!" And with a grand sweeping motion, she gestured to the tinted van.

The doors flung open and four individuals stepped out. Three of them were complete mysteries, but one of them at least Baby recognized.

"'ALLO LAW!" She shouted, waving from the balcony next to Sanji.

"You know that guy?" Sanji asked.

Baby nodded enthusiastically. "Oh yes! He is my best friend! LAAAWW! IT IS MOI, BABY!"

Law made a deliberate show of completely ignoring her and kept his back to the gate, along with the other three.

One of them, the one with green hair and a scar over his eye, glanced over his shoulder at the balcony and turned back to Law. "I think someone's trying to get your attention."

"I don't hear anything," Law said with the bitterness of orange juice after brushing your teeth.

"THESE ARE THE MEN AND WOMEN WHO HAVE PLEDGED THEIR LIVES TO THE SAFETY AND CONTINUED MAINTENANCE OF THIS OUTPOST!" Hancock announced, commanding authority and demanding everyone look at her because she was important. "THEY ARE! JEWELRY BONNEY!"

The one with pink hair, piercings, and an outfit that looked trashy but in a dedicated way, like she had studied and planned out every bit of her outfit to achieve the most amount of dirtbag possible, waved with two fingers and then shoved her hands in her coat pockets. She carried the attitude of a teenager who was being forced to go to the craft store in the mall instead of getting to go to Hot Topic.

"PERONA!"

The other one with pink hair, but she dressed like a gothic lolita, with the big floofy dress and braided hair and parasol and combat boots, didn't wave at all. Instead she scowled and huffed as though all of this was beneath her. The truth is, not much was beneath her because she was also short.

"RORONOA ZORO"

In complete contrast to the dainty little lolita, Zoro was a gorilla. Evidently he was going for some kind of pirate theme. But not the eyepatch and parrot kind. More like the cool kind, wearing a thick, heavy olive green coat and heavy leather boots. He wasn't too dedicated to the pirate look or else he'd have some kind of cutlass or musket instead of the three katanas attached to his belt. He nodded to the rest of the group but didn't say anything else. He was trying to look cool, you see.

"AND TRAFALGAR LAW!"

In the year since we last saw him, not much has changed about Law. He was still a weenie who didn't get enough sleep and looked constantly annoyed at literally everything in his way. It didn't help that Baby was still ineffectually trying to get his attention by shouting for him nonstop. And yet his dirtbag appearance had this inexplicable appeal and most of the ladies present were happy he would be joining them.

"These volunteers are among the best and brightest of my empire. Each has a set of skills I believe will be more than suitable to meet the needs of this outpost. I would've been able to go into detail, but now that I'm on a time limit, they will have to explain themselves," Hancock said. "NOW! MINIONS! UNLOAD THEIR SUPPLIES!"

She stepped up on the backs of her men and settled herself inside of her tent on the back of the truck. While she did that, the other men inside the escort trucks piled out and got to work pulling suitcases and boxes off the beds of the trucks.

"Oh you guys are gonna bring all that inside-" Zoro started to say, only to watch them unceremoniously dump everything in a big pile in the middle of the street.

Once they had finished this bare minimum work task, they climbed back into their trucks and Hancock poked her head out to address the remaining twelve members. "I leave this outpost to you all! Never forget that you all now represent my glorious empire! Your actions here will reflect on the honor of not only your fellow man, but on your empress! I trust all of you to stand as bastions of my beauty and righteousness! Goodbye, all!" She disappeared into the tent, satisfied with her speech. "NOW TAKE ME TO BELLEMERE!" She called to her minions.

The music started back up and the trucks,

Minus the tinted van, pulled back out into the street. Sanji and Baby watched them leave from the balcony until they were out of sight and the music had faded into silence. Franky walked over to the gate and closed it before turning around to the new crew.

"So! Welcome to Little Garden! Let's uh…" He glanced at the pile of luggage. "Let's get you four sorted into houses, eh?"


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Three Days after arriving in Little Garden

Let's talk about the layout of Little Garden, now that everyone is present and accounted for. Let's pretend, for instance, that the gateway to Little Garden is at 12 o'clock. Now I know you're telling me that the entrance is not actually the northernmost part of the outpost and the cul-de-sac actually opens at the southeast but I'm going to ask you to shut up because I'm trying to explain things in a simple and easy to understand way.

Starting from the gate and going clockwise, we have Franky and Sanji rooming together. Sanji was predictably not too pleased with this arrangement, but Franky was determined to make Sanji his best friend. They both had a weakness for sexy ladies so they at least had that in common. There was also the fact that Franky lived in the house with the biggest backyard, and therefore had the biggest garden. So Sanji at least had fresh vegetables and fruits to work with.

Next to them was Luffy and Nami, who were completely comfortable with their situation, and next door to _them_ were Coby and Vivi. They were less comfortable and that was primarily because of the dread of having a Talk later.

Next to them were Law and Perona. Their setup was unique in that their house doubled as a clinic. Law was a doctor, if you'll remember, and Perona knew _enough_ about medicine to more or less qualify as a nurse. She could bandage a wound at least, and read the labels off of medicine bottles. She was also loud and bossy, which meant she would do well on guard duty. Meanwhile Law was quiet and brooding so he worked well spending the entire day at the clinic, inside, and only speaking to people when it was necessary.

Next to them were Zoro and Bonney, who only decided to room together because neither of them cared about picking roommates until it was too late and they were the only ones left. It's not like they particularly cared about each other. Which is to say they didn't hate each other. It's just that one's presence in the house didn't affect the other in any significant way. Don't get me wrong, though, they still acted like they hated everything. Bonney was a bit more vocal about it, whereas Zoro preferred to silently brood with a scowl on his face.

And finally there were Robin and Baby. Now, Robin may have acted in haste in her attempt to cockblock Sanji, because rooming with Baby 5 created an issue. The issue was that Robin was unfortunately emotionally and socially stunted due to years of not trusting others and being elevated to near deity status by a cult for some amount of time. And Baby 5 was so very much _not_ emotionally and socially stunted. This was also elevated when Baby learned that Robin also spoke French and decided that their house would be a French-only house.

The last house would remain devoid of people, but still kept furnished. Franky insisted on it serving as a guest house in case any travelers needed a place to crash for a little bit. Aside from that, it was mostly used as storage for anything the group didn't want cluttering up their own houses. The basement was stocked with canned goods and dry food, the garage packed with all the extra gas cans and tools. With everyone moved in and the system set in place, it didn't take long for the group to sink into a daily routine. And once the daily routine kicked in, it didn't take long for most of them to become bored with the daily routine.

Now, all that being said, I told you that story so I could tell you these stories.

Starting with this one.

"Ooh there's one," Bonney said, peering through her scope. "He is wearing a… band t-shirt, looks like… MCR. Aaaand he's got tight black jeans. Looks pretty young, too."

"Ooh ooh lemme see!" Perona grabbed at Bonney's rifle until the older girl passed it to her. This is what passed for excitement when you lived in a cul-de-sac tucked away in an unassuming subdivision and had to pull guard duty in the middle of the day. You commented on the fashion sense of zombies.

Perona scanned the area and brought the scope to her eye. "I see him! Aww, look at him!" she said almost affectionately. "He looks so cute!"

Bonney bit into her mid-afternoon snack, which was a dry brick of ramen noodles with the flavor packet sprinkled on top. "I guesh," she said with her mouth full. "If y'r int' that."

"What, goths?"

Bonney swallowed. "Corpses. If I ever start calling people cute, they're gonna have to be alive. … And girls."

Perona huffed. "I didn't mean I wanted to _date_ him! I just think he's cute! You don't think the zombies are kinda cute? They're like little babies sometimes! Stumbling around and bumping into things~ It's adorable!"

Bonney inhaled sharply. "Man, they're not like fucking babies. I've seen zombie babies before. That shit's fucked up."

Perona had gone back to looking at her cute zombie boy. "If I was going to date someone undead, I'd want him to be a vampire, anyway. Like, a really old one, centuries old! But he was bitten when he was a young, handsome gentlemen~ And I'd be his vampire princess and we'd live in a manor that had been around since he was alive~" She rocked back and forth in her gothic lolita daydream.

Bonney chomped down on her snack. "Yeah. Shucksh 'at we got shtuck wit' zhombiesh," she gulped loudly. "Instead of cool undead. I think I'd be cool with the world ending if we were fuckin' overrun by vampires, or like… cool ghosts or shit."

"Ooh ghosts! Perona squealed. "I'd love to be a cute ghost too! I'd live in a manor and fly around scaring people all day! Do ghosts have princesses? Whatever, I'd be one anyway. Oooh! Or what if we were all werewolves?! I could be a pretty wolf girl with pointy ears and a tail~ Aaah~ Zombies are cute, but… There are so many better undead monsters we could've gotten…" She sounded forlorn.

Bonney nodded, half paying attention. She didn't expect the conversation to steer this direction but, well, there they were. "Werewolves would be pretty sick…" She was silent for a second. "Wait, werewolves aren't undead! They're just regular monsters!"

Perona shook her head, her long pink braids bouncing all over the place. "Nuh-uh! They're undead! They're totally undead monsters!"

"No they're not. They're just regular people who turn into hairy wolf dudes. That's like saying the Hulk is a fuckin' undead."

"Werewolves eat people. That's a classic sign of undead! Zombies eat people, vampires eat people, werewolves eat people." She had finally turned to face Bonney square on, really getting into her face.

Bonney just scowled at her. "Dude, they eat people because they're fucking carnivores! A guy transforms in the middle of a city, he's gonna go for the nearest meal! Just happens to be people! He transforms in the woods, he's gonna eat deer and bunnies and shit.

"You're crazy." Perona huffed and crossed her arms.

" _You're_ crazy!" Bonney huffed back.

"You're both crazy!" A third voice called out to them. They whirled around to see Zoro standing near the ladder leading up to the balcony they were standing on, stonefaced as ever. "I don't mean to interrupt whatever… stupid thing you're talking about, but we're getting everyone together for a town meeting. Come on."

"Fuck you, cyclops!" Bonney yelled, flipping him off. "You can't just interrupt a serious fuckin' conversation like that! Rude motherfucker!"

Perona mirrored Bonney's angry expression. "Uh, besides, we're on guard duty? If we leave, no one will be up here to keep watch! Stupid." She scoffed.

They both watched his shoulders rise and his chest puff out as he took a long, deep breath to keep himself from shouting back. "Look, they want everyone there, I don't know. Just come on."

Grumbling, the girls followed after him as he started walking to the storage house. As Perona descended the ladder, following close behind Bonney, she asked "Hey, you mentioned you liked cute girls, right? So does that mean you're…"

"You're not cute," Bonney said without turning around.

Perona, offended, gasped and was quick to charge forward and shove into Bonney's back with all her strength. Which wasn't a lot, considering Perona was a little thing, but it was strong enough to nearly send the older girl falling onto her face.

They didn't have a town hall, of course, so the gang all gathered in the storage house's living room. They pulled chairs out of the kitchen or just leaned their backs against the wall to accommodate everyone.

Zoro, Perona, and Bonney were the last ones to enter. The rest were all scattered around the room, except for Nami and Franky, who were standing at the front, looking out at the others.

Nami bounced on her heels, "Okay that's everyone…" she said. "We'll make this quick! Franky and I have been talking and the two of us came up with a few guidelines going forward with Outpost Little Garden. Just a couple policies to keep things organized."

"Policies? Who died and put you two in charge?" Bonney scoffed. "You don't get to just _decide_ on things without asking us first!"

Nami and Franky looked at each other uneasily. "Uh, well… No one put us in charge," Nami said.

"Yeah, we're not tryin' to be leaders or anything, we just… had some ideas." Franky looked at Bonney. "Why, did you wanna be in charge?"

Bonney hesitated. "W-well. No… But- I-... Whatever, just tell us your dumb fuckin ideas!" She leaned back in her chair with her arms crossed.

Franky shrugged, brushing it off with a grin. "Well, that was kinda part of one of 'em! Me and Nami ain't really gunnin' to be in charge of this place, but we did want to be in charge of the supply requests. I mean, Nami's Bellemere's kid and I been livin' here for a while, so we'll be the go-to if you need anything special shipped to the outpost. Just let one of us know if you need somethin' added to the list."

"Next up," Nami said, "We wrote up a weekly schedule for guard duty, instead of just picking… Whoever is free. It'll be posted on the front door of the storage house so everyone can see it and there's no excuse. Everyone is on it, and everyone works equal shifts. That includes you, Law!" She stared directly at him.

Law sat up in his seat. "Oh that's bullshit! I'm a doctor, not a hired gun! I don't have the- the physical stamina for that kind of thing!"

"You stand up on the balcony, walk around, take shots at anything that gets close," Zoro said from his spot against the wall. "We all have to do it. It's easy. Stop whining."

"Thank you, Zoro," Nami said. Zoro nodded at her. Law rolled his eyes.

Franky clapped his hands together. "Well, that's about it actually! But uh, while we're all gathered here, if anyone's got announcements of their own, now's the time!"

There was an anticipatory pause as everyone waited for someone else to say something. When the coast seemed clear, they started to stand up. Robin, being the kind of student who would remind the teacher that there was homework after the bell rang, chose that time to raise her hand. "Actually, I do have something I want to share.

There was a collective groan as everyone collapsed back to where they were sitting. "You'll like this, though," Robin said as she stood up and walked to the front. She faced the crowd like a public speaker, raised her arm, and lowered her shirt sleeve, revealing the scarred over bite mark on her forearm.

"I have been bitten," she said with a knowing grin. There was the expected gasps and murmurs. Even Franky jumped away from her in surprise. "Relax, relax, I'm quite obviously fine. It happened years ago, long enough for the wound to heal, as you can see. I've never shown any signs of infection, never been sick. My heart beats just as well as anyone's." She reveled in their terror and awe.

"How? How is that possible?" Law choked out.

Robin shrugged nonchalantly. "There was a time when I would've done anything to figure it out myself. But the answer is, I just don't know. You're welcome to run some tests if it'll make you feel better."

Law scowled. Something about that did not sit right with him.

Perona, sitting next to him, was all sparkles. "That's so amazing~! I'm so jealous, you're like a smart zombie that doesn't rot! The only way it'd be better is if you had cute stitch marks all over~!"

"I'm mostly just grateful I'm not craving human flesh," Robin said with a nonthreatening smile. "I just wanted to let everyone know before someone found out and it became a crisis. I swear, I'm not contagious or anything."

Law shook his head. "I'll determine that myself. Come to my office when we're done here."

"Of course," Robin said. "Whatever helps you sleep at night."

"That is seriously the coolest thing ever!" Luffy said from his spot on the couch. He was sitting up and grinning wide-eyed at Robin, who stifled her laughter.

"Um… Luffy, you- You knew that already, sweetie…" Nami helpfully reminded him.

"No, I know! It's still really cool! I wish I was immune too! But… I don't wanna test it…"

"And I'm very grateful for that," Nami added.

"I am sure Law would be very interested in Robin's condition!" Baby chirped in. "After all, he is-" and then she was cut off when Law slapped his hand over her mouth.

"Shhhhhhut up! What are you doing?!" Law whisper-shouted.

Baby pulled his hand away, confused. "What is- Oh! Ohhh zhat is right, you wanted to keep that a secret…" she looked mortified, trailing off with barely a whisper.

All eyes were on Law and Baby now. "Keep… What a secret?" Nami asked. "You holding out on us, Law?"

"NO!" Baby and Law shouted simultaneously.

"Well, if it's not a secret, then what are you two whispering about?" Zoro asked, even though he didn't really care. He just wanted to make someone squirm.

"It's nothing! There's no secret, I just don't want to talk!" Law protested.

Perona rolled her eyes and groaned as dramatically as possible. "Oh come oooooonnnnn! We're roommates and you've said like three words to me! Quit holding out!"

Zoro locked eyes with Baby, who now had her own hands slapped over her mouth. "Hey, cough up the details, Baby."

"Leave her alone, you jackass!" Sanji shouted back at him.

The scene was devolving into pure chaos. The more Law and Baby closed up, the more the others in the room egged them on to spill the details. Voices were starting to raise and people were yelling over each other. Coby and Vivi were the only ones who were staying quiet. Coby out of fear of getting involved in an argument, and Vivi because this kind of behavior was beneath her. Eventually, she felt compelled to do something. She took a deep breath and yelled out "OKAY!"

Everyone shut up at once and slowly turned to face the 18 year old and youngest member of the community. Coby scooted away a little bit from her to avoid their gaze.

"Look! It's clear Law has some kind of mysterious secret and we're all clearly _dying_ to know what it is!" She shouted.

Law dragged his hands across his face. "It's _not_ a _secret_! It's just something I don't really want to fucking _talk about_! Can we just drop it?! Please!"

Vivi turned her gaze from Law to everyone else. "Yes. Yes we are all going to drop it. We are all going to drop it because we are all decent human beings and we respect people's privacy!" Vivi's voice cracked a little because she wasn't used to using such a harsh tone, but she got the message across.

There was a lot of unease floating around the room. A sort of collective shame washing over everyone that only comes from being scolded by a girl who couldn't legally drink.

"Look, if Law's got information that might-" Zoro started to say.

"Ap-bap-bap-bap!" Vivi stopped him. "It's over!"

"And uh… So is this meeting I think. Let's all clear out and cool our heads, huh?" Franky said with an awkward chuckle. The tension that hung in the room was palpable and everyone was honestly glad to clear out of the house. Vivi and Coby were still sitting on the couch when everyone else left.

Vivi leaned forward and rested her face in her hands. Coby reached over to rub her back in consolation. "That got pretty intense, huh?" He said in a comforting voice. "You handled that pretty well."

Vivi leaned back against the couch, but instead of looking anguished, she was beaming. "Oh my God I can't believe I did that! I got everyone to listen to me! That felt incredible!"

Coby's eyes widened. "W-wait, you're _happy_ with that?"

She looked at him, radiating joy and sunshine. "Why wouldn't I be?! I feel great! I totally defused the situation! I was like a diplomat or a negotiator or something!"

Coby swelled with pride in his wife and leaned in to kiss her. "You know, none of this would be possible if it weren't for you," he said against her lips.

Vivi's eyes widened while she kissed him back. That was true, wasn't it? If she hadn't parlayed with Hancock, they wouldn't be here in Little Garden, would they…?

The kissing started leaning more toward full-on making out, but Vivi's inner conflict about where she and her husband belonged was flaring up again. Vivi could multitask, though.

Meanwhile, Baby had shuffled her way out of the house feeling downright embarrassed at herself. She fought against burning tears stinging at her eyes and couldn't help but sniffle as she stepped off the front porch, trailing behind everyone else who was leaving. Sanji was walking ahead of her and heard her little sounds of anguish, and immediately pivoted around to face her. "Hey, Baby, are you okay…?"

She lifted her head so Sanji could see her watery eyes and red cheeks. When they made eye contact, the dam burst and she broke into twin waterfalls of tears. "Oh Sanji!" she wailed, "I feel just terrible! Law, he trusted me, his dearest friend, wizh such personal information! And I cause such a fuss by nearly spilling my guts!"

Sanji reached his hands out, hesitated, then decided to go for it and held her by the shoulders. "Hey, hey, it's… It's okay, really. Whatever he told you, it's still unknown to us. And I doubt any of us are gonna be pressuring him to talk anytime soon. Y'know, or else we'd be facing Vivi's wrath." He laughed uneasily, trying to elevate her mood.

Baby wiped her eyes, but the tears kept flowing. "Oh but I caused such a commotion! All I want to do is help everyone, Sanji! I want to be useful in zhis community! I do not want to cause trouble between our groups!"

"I know you don't, it's okay…" Sanji said, "Trust me, everyone's gonna forget all about this in a few days. Look, we're all just a little uneasy because none of us really know each other yet. Look, back in Boston, when I first arrived, people were suspicious of me too. But eventually they got over it. Just give it time."

"Really?" she sniffled.

"Yeah! If you just stop talking about it, people will forget." He smiled at her. "Listen, if anyone tries to drag information out of you, just-"

"Punch zhem?"

"Ye-NO! … Maybe." He shook his head to clear his thoughts. "A-anyway, if they still won't leave you alone, y'know, I'll… back you up." He put on the most charming smile he could muster. His teeth practically sparkled.

It seemed to help her calm down. The sniffling came to a stop and she matched his smile, even if her cheeks were still red, which really just made her look even cuter… "Merci, Sanji. You are such a gentleman~" she sighed dramatically. "I suppose I should find Law and zhrow myself at his feet and beg for his forgiveness... " She pulled away from Sanji. "Adieu for now, my gentleman~" she walked with both an air of gloom and an air of perseverance towards Law's house.

Sanji wished her good luck as she walked off, and his smile faded into something more serious. He leaned back against the house's front porch railing and lit up a cigarette. It's true, even he was curious about whatever it was Law kept hidden. Who wouldn't be? But he had been in Law's shoes before. People casting suspicion on him when he was new to a community. But just as Law had put his faith in Baby (which, even Sanji thought was a bit of poor thinking), Sanji had put his faith in Bellemere, and she kept it a secret to everyone else.

But not to us!

Four years ago, back in Funkytown, Sanji found himself sitting across from Bellemere in a makeshift interrogation room. Really, it was someone's unfinished basement, but the concrete walls and uncarpeted floors created the same aesthetic. Bellemere had her feet up on the card table that was between them. She looked relaxed, but in a cautious way. She wouldn't take her eyes off of him.

"You understand why I'm doing this, right?" she asked. "A kid, all by himself, showing up at my front gate? Barely armed, but looking fit and healthy? I mean… you're what, twelve?"

"I'm nineteen…" he muttered. He was intimidated. Beyond that, he had fallen straight into "afraid" territory. He had arrived at the gates of Funkytown just over an hour ago, and after arguing over whether or not he should surrender his weapons, he was escorted (re: forced) into this basement, where a smoking, hardboiled cop with a partially shaved head sat down to interrogate him. Not to mention that this hardboiled cop was also kind of hot in an intense way. God he could use a cigarette.

"Well, either way," Bellemere said. "The point is, you show up and I'm not supposed to be suspicious? Look, I wanna trust you. I mean, I got two girls about your age. So I see someone like you all alone, my maternal instincts flare up and I just wanna protect you. But then there's the cop side of me that says a teenager like you in the zombie apocalypse… probably up to some shit. So, what's your story, little fella?"

Sanji tapped his foot anxiously. "Well, my name is Sanji…"

She nodded. "And you got a last name?"

"Do you?"

Bellemere gave him a look that politely informed him that backsassing her was not proper behavior at this time. He sank in his seat and continued. "I-I mean, I'm from uh… New Orleans…"

"New Orleans," she repeated in a faux-impressed way. "So what did you do there? Before Zombie Day."

"I-I did… whatever. I went to school, I went to work… I dated girls, j-just usual stuff."

"And where'd you work?"

"At a restaurant! I did part time fry cook duties! D-do you grill all of your newcomers like this?!"

Bellemere smiled for the first time. "Heh. Grill. Fry cook. You're funny kid." Somehow it didn't make Sanji feel any better. "So, you just struck out on your own one day? Headed north because you got sick of warm weather?"

"N-no, no, we just kept moving for… various reasons. Didn't plan on ending up here… And I was with a group."

"Where's your group now?"

Sanji swallowed hard. He looked to the floor, trying to hide the glare he was giving the past. "Well, you found me alone, right?"

She nodded. "Good answer."

Sanji ran his hand through his hair. "Are we good now? It's been a long day and I'd really like to fall asleep… Did I pass?"

Bellemere crossed her arms and rocked back and forth, balancing her chair on its back legs. "Not until you tell me whatever it is that you're afraid to tell me."

"Wh-what are you talking about…?"

Cool as ice, Bellemere lit a cigarette and took a long drag from it. "I've interrogated people before. You're afraid. You're afraid of me figuring something out. But it's not something you plan on doing. You're afraid that I'll find out something beyond your control. You look hopeless, not suspicious. So let me tell you how this works. If you stay quiet, I'm going to assume you are dangerous to my people, and I'll throw you out of my town. But if you tell me? Then maybe the two of us can work something out and you can stay here." She leaned back, almost on the verge of falling over backwards, but not quite getting to that point. "Choice is yours, kid."

Sanji was quiet for a long time. "Look, can you at least promise you won't tell anyone else?"

Bellemere shrugged. "Depends on what it is."

He exhaled sharply. "Alright. It's… It's my family. My last name is…" he had to really work to force the last word out. "Vinsmoke."

Bellemere fell backwards in her chair with a yelp, landing flat on her back. Sanji sprang to his feet and rushed around the table to to extend his hand and help her up. "A-are you okay?! Sorry, I didn't know you'd react like that to my name!"

She let Sanji help her up, rubbing the spot on her back where concrete met spine. "What? No, I just leaned back too far. Who the hell are the Vinsmokes?"

Sanji stared at her. "A-... Are you serious?"

She shrugged.

"The… There was a big trial going on in the week before Zombie Day? The Vinsmoke family being linked to dozens of murders? Mafia ties? Assassination? It was… all over the news…?"

Bellemere just shook her head slowly. "Kid, the week before Zombie Day, I was digging into a string of bike thefts around my town. Turned out the culprit was my daughter. Didn't really have time to watch the news. But anyway! You're telling me you're some kind of assassin?"

"Not me! Not me, my _family_!" Sanji protested. "They were, well, training me, but no, I never killed anyone! I-in fact, I was going to testify _against_ them, but the zombies kind of… Broke into the courthouse."

"As you do," Bellemere said. "So you're the good boy in a family of mafia assassins and you're afraid if people find out, they'll think you're one of _them_ and no one will feel safe."

"Y-yeah! Yeah exactly!" Sanji said, feeling a glimmer of hope. "Look, I know it sounds crazy, but it's the truth! I never wanted to be part of the… family business! I wanted to be a chef."

Bellemere was studying him now. She could tell when someone was lying. Sanji was nervous, scared, but he didn't look like he was making it all up. "So what happened to your family after Zombie Day? Any of them… still around?"

It was Sanji's turn to shrug. "I know for sure most of them are dead. The ones I'm unsure about… I don't really care to find them."

She seemed to soften up a bit, but still kept her eyes on him. "Alright. You can stay here. I'll put you on a… probation basis. Not going to take my eyes off of you for a while. Stay on your best behavior and there won't be any problems."

Sanji's relieved smile spread from ear to ear. She wasn't expecting him to throw his arms around her and hug her tight. "Thank you! Thank you, I promise you won't regret it! I swear, there's no way anything in my past could ever catch up to me anyway!"

And indeed, for Sanji's entire time in Funkytown, nothing in his past emerged. But Sanji wasn't in Funkytown right now, was he?


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Six Days after arriving in Little Garden

As I mentioned earlier, Robin was, in a way, starting to regret choosing to room with Baby. Oh sure, they had some things in common and they got along well enough. It's just that Baby had her way of doing things and Robin had hers. For instance, Baby, having been a DJ in the past, preferred to immerse herself in loud music when she was working on a task, like cleaning her guns or reloading her guns, or really anything involving her guns.

Robin, on the other hand, preferred absolute silence when she was working on a task. Like reading, which she was doing because there was fuck-all else to do around the outpost today.

She was also reading because reading is fun. It's so fun. Especially reading fanfiction. You know what's even more fun than reading fanfiction? Reviewing it! Try it! You can do it right now with the fanfiction you are currently reading! Just click the button and write something! Go ahead! Go- What? No, I was just- I wasn't- Okay fine. I'll get back to it...

There was fuck-all else to do around the outpost that day. Therefore, Robin had decided to consume a mystery novel, and I mean really consume it. Really get herself in there and feel the characters and their motivations and all that good stuff.

Screaming over techno music was not what she wanted to do. But it was what she was doing, anyway. As close as possible to Baby so her voice could be heard while she was bent over, dismantling her assault rifle to clean it. "CAN YOU JUST- TURN IT DOWN A LITTLE BIT?! JUST A LIIIITTLE BIT?! I'M TRYING TO READ!" As I said, Baby insisted on this being a French-only house.

"NO, NO! IT CAN'T BE DONE! MUSIC LIKE THIS MUST BE PLAYED AS LOUD AS POSSIBLE!" Baby was similarly screaming over her own music. Robin swore she could feel the house shake.

"THEN HEADPHONES! THERE HAS TO BE HEADPHONES AROUND HERE SOMEWHERE!"

Baby shook her head, pointing to the source of the music. "IT'S ALL ON VINYL! YOU THINK I WOULD PLAY ANYTHING ELSE?! IF THIS IS BOTHERING YOU, WHY DON'T YOU GO READ IN THE STORAGE HOUSE OR SOMETHING?!"

Robin rubbed her eyes with her thumb and forefinger, reminding herself that strangling her roommate would definitely look bad to the rest of the people in the outpost. So instead she exhaled sharply. "FINE! THAT'S WHERE I'LL BE!"

She stomped out of the room, hoping Baby could catch wind of her frustration and feel bad for disrupting her roommate's peace. She didn't.

Catch wind of the frustration, that is, hers is a crime of ignorance, not malice. Baby reserved her fury for those that deserved it.

Robin slammed the front door of the house shut and, standing there on the porch, could still barely hear the muffled pounding of the bass dropping. How Baby still had her hearing was lost on Robin.

She did have a point, though. The storage house would be empty and she'd be able to read in peace. She decided that on the off chance someone did have to come in for supplies, she could manage that level of interruption. She walked next door, book in hand, finger between the pages marking where she had left off.

The storage house was furnished and cleaned so it could serve as guest housing, but it was picked clean of its good furniture, and replaced with lesser furniture from everyone else's houses. So, for instance, the comfy recliner that once sat in the carpet divots had been replaced with a chair that was still comfy, but did not recline. Robin didn't mind this. She was a simple woman with simple tastes and a lever that turned a chair into an awkwardly shaped bed was not something she deemed necessary.

To avoid having to actually interact with anyone, Robin decided to take refuge in the bedroom upstairs. Perfectly isolated, had a relatively decent bed to sit on, and free of major distractions, it was an excellent spot to dive into the mysterious world of this 1940's noir detective.

It took approximately fifteen minutes of isolated quiet time for her to hear the sound of the garage door being opened. She paused in her reading, perking her head up and listening intently. At least she _thought_ she heard the garage open. Maybe she was just hearing things. Maybe her paranoia had gotten the better of her. So she waited and listened for any follow up noise. Shuffling or cans clattering or anything to indicate that a person might be in the house. Surviving six years in a zombie apocalypse, you learned real quick to take note of any sound of an intruder in whatever shelter you found yourself in.

She didn't hear anything at first. She waited another few seconds to reassure herself that it was nothing. Hesitantly, she settled back down and opened her book up and that's when the sound of power tools kicked in. She withheld the urge to scream, biting down on the inside of her cheek to ensure all the yelling took place inside her head.

She tried to ignore it. It wasn't that loud, certainly not the level of Baby's music. Just the whirring of some machine or another, the sound of metal grinding against metal. It was all taking place inside the garage, so it was muffled by way of having to travel all the way up to the bedroom. She begrudgingly climbed off of the bed and walked to the door, shutting it to provide some additional buffers to the noise. She sighed sharply when she realized she could still hear it. It almost would've been better if it were one consistent noise going off. Instead it came in and out at a random pattern. There would be whirring and grinding, then silence. Then it would come back in. Then silence. Then sharp pounding noises. Then silence.

Then came the music. Not nearly as loud as Baby's but somehow more obnoxious all the same. Because it was a genre she rarely listened to and even made an attempt to avoid in certain situations, it took her a second to realize what it was. The hard drums, the irritating electric guitar, the screaming. It was Jock Rock. The bloated, bombastic music that used to frequent sports arenas and the pile of CD's in your dad's car. It was garbage music selected because it was loud enough to get people excited but no one needed to pay attention to it.

There was only one person in Little Garden who would not only play jock rock, but also play it in a place where people could see him.

"Franky…" Robin muttered through gritted teeth. Just what in the hell was he doing anyway? She flung open the door and skulked down the stairs, feeling the music and tool noises get louder and louder with each step.

When she reached the garage, she was greeted with a… thing. It may have once been a jeep, but she had never seen a jeep covered in so much seemingly superfluous attachments. It was like a car-sized Battlebot. It had makeshift armor plating, scrapped in a style not unlike the walls that surrounded them. It had spikes on the front of it. Actual metal spikes sticking out a foot or so from the hood of the car. It had reflective The grill had been replaced with what looked like makeshift cowcatcher from a train. And the whole thing was painted in bright colors, like someone in Mad Max had been caught up in a patriotic fervor.

Robin regarded the thing with disdain, partially because she was already annoyed, and partially because it just seemed like a waste of time and resources to turn a car into a battletank. She found the CD player on a toolbench nearby and turned it off to get Franky's attention.

His head perked up from somewhere behind the Jeep and his confused look turned into a sheepish smile. "Oh, hey, Robin! Didn't know you were there!"

"What a surprise," she said flatly. "What _is_ this thing…?"

Franky leapt to his feet and walked around the jeep, beaming with pride. "This is the greatest thing I've ever created! I call it the Frankystein!"

"Because it's an abomination to both science and God?"

"Yeah! Also because it's made mostly outta parts from old dead cars that I scavenged!" His dumb grin filled in the silence for a moment, until he continued. "Also it's because my name is Franky."

"Clever. Do you have to work on the… Frankystein right now? I was trying to read and the noise is distracting." She wasn't trying to sound like a bitch, but she was there first, after all.

Franky, unfortunately, just shook his head. "No can do, Robarino," making her cringe at the nickname, "Either I work on this thing during the day, or I keep everyone up workin' on it at night. Besides! Luffy wants to see the thing in action, so I'm trying to put the finishing touches on it by tomorrow!"

Robin rubbed at her eyes, grumbling under her breath. "Of course."

"And, y'know, all the car parts are here, so… This is the garage I gotta work in."

" _Of course._ "

"But hey!" Franky said, not wanting to disappoint anyone ever. "If you're lookin' for a place to read, why don't you just climb the wall? Nice day for it. Bring one of the folding lawn chairs up there. It's just Perona and Bonney on guard duty today, they won't bother you!"

The combination of Perona and Bonney talking together momentarily worried Robin, but Franky was right in his assumption that they would leave her alone. As long as they kept their distance, she could relax. "That's… That actually sounds like a good idea. Thank you, Franky."

"O'course! Here, you can grab one of these!" he ambled his way over to the garage wall, where a hook containing one of those folded up lawn chairs in the bag was waiting. He pulled it off and tossed it to her, which she wasn't expecting. Trying to hold onto her book, she made a fumbling attempt to catch it and somehow managed to succeed.

She walked down the sidewalk, crossing the street to put herself at maximum distance away from both her house and the storage house. She shouldered the bag containing her chair and with only a little bit of struggling, managed to climb the ladder up to the balcony. She gave the area a quick glance to see any immediate threats to her peace. Satisfied to see Bonney and Perona were nowhere near her, she got to work opening the lawn chair and settling in.

It wasn't a perfect setup, but it would do. Franky was right, it was a nice day. The sun was out, it wasn't too hot, wasn't too cold. There was the low rumble of ambient noises, but nothing she couldn't ignore. She settled into the chair and opened her book once again. Her mind, able to recognize patterns, kept on alert for something to interrupt her.

She finally started to lower her guard after she made some significant progress through the book. It wasn't until she had gotten to the part where the scumbag detective had stumbled into a warehouse and ran into a bunch of thugs trying to dump another body in the river. A grin spread across her lips as she prepared for the inevitable fight scene. Her eyes widened and she brought her knees up to her chest, reading an exchange of hard-knuckled blows so eloquently described in such extravagant detail that there's no way in hell that I could transcribe a passage of the book and fool you all into thinking it was written by a completely different author. Use your imagination!

Right when the detective was grabbed by the collar and thrown into a stack of pallets, Robin heard a wet, sickening snarl and for a second thought she had imagined it coming from one of the goons pounding on her protagonist. There was a muffled thump, and then she realized it was coming from the real world and not the realm of fiction. Another thump, some more snarling and gurgling, and Robin forced herself out of the chair and peered over the wall. She tisked at the sight of five zombies ineffectively pounding and scratching at the thick walls, shoving into each other blindly and wearing down their rotting fingers to the bone.

"Oh you little bastards…" Robin groaned, causing one to tilt its head upward, toward the noise. Its lower jaw had either rotted off or been torn off, meaning it couldn't even do the one thing zombies were known to do anymore. Robin regarded it as an absolutely useless creature. "Shoo! Shoo! Get away, all of you!" She whisper-shouted. When they didn't heed her command, because of course they wouldn't, she stood up straight and looked around the balcony for any weapon or heavy object she could use on them. She found nothing, and all she was currently armed with was a knife and a book. Neither of which she was willing to drop on them.

Grumbling and muttering the foulest of profanities, she had no choice but to pick up the chair and carry it to a new location. The zombies wouldn't follow her, as long as she stayed quiet, her immunity would keep her masked from them. She eventually settled in what was technically Coby and Vivi's backyard, but still up on the balcony. It's not like it was trespassing or anything. She collapsed back into the chair, brought her feet up onto the edge of the seat and yanked the book open. There was something spiteful about it now. It wasn't just about reading a book, it was about beating a universe that refused to let her read a book.

Her rage finally subsided the more she flipped through the pages. The world of the story became real to her again and she finally felt like she could make some progress. The pieces were starting to come together and Robin found herself nodding along as she read more. She had a feeling she knew where the story was going to lead and if the author could pull it off, she'd be impressed.

Let's see if you can guess what's going to happen next! Everyone write down your responses and email them to me and if you guess right, you'll win a prize!*

The doorwall slid open and out stepped Coby and Vivi, talking quietly between themselves. Robin didn't really notice them until Vivi had to call out, "What the-!? Robin! Hey, what are you doing in our backyard?"

It's not her fault, it's not her fault, she doesn't know, Robin had to keep telling herself. She bit the inside of her mouth until she tasted blood, clenching the book in her hands so hard her knuckles started turning white.

She managed to keep her cool as she climbed down the nearest ladder to meet them in their backyard. Her eyes were screwed shut and she took a deep breath. "I'm just… Trying… To read. I've been trying… All day…" She mentally apologized to the married couple for what was about to happen, but she started it and there's no going back.

"I can't read in my own home because my roommate still thinks she lives in a French nightclub! I can't read in the storage house because Franky just _has_ to work on his stupid car today! I can't even read outside because the WALKING FUCKING DEAD won't let me have a moment's peace!"

Coby and Vivi said nothing, terrified of what would happen if they were to interject at any time.

"It's not much to ask, alright?! Right?! Just a chance to read?! There are now a finite number of books in the world! The great modern writers we had are all dead now! And even if there are some that are still alive, it's not like we're all racing to reestablish publishing companies! Books are even more sacred now than they ever were!" She looked at them, waiting for them to back her up, but they remained silent and afraid. So she exhaled sharply, letting all the frustration out like a rapidly deflating balloon. "All I wanted today was to just sit down and read a book. Just a quiet day to read a book."

With her shoulders slumped downward, it was clear Robin had run out of steam and it was probably safe to talk. The young couple exchanged glances, silently confirming with one another that it was okay to speak.

"Um… That… That sucks…" Coby muttered.

"You know, if you're looking for someplace quiet… You could try our house?" Vivi managed to squeak out.

Robin's head lifted up slightly. "Really?"

They both nodded hesitantly. "Yeah. Vivi and I are taking over for Bonney and Perona, so the house'll be empty for a few hours," Coby said.

Robin stared at them, wide-eyed in amazement. "Can you promise? Can you _promise_ that no one will come barging in?"

"Yes? You can even lock the door if it makes you feel better," Vivi said.

They weren't expecting Robin to wrap her arms around both of them, and they certainly weren't expecting her to drop all of her weight onto them and force them to support her. "You two are beautiful and perfect and I love you both."

They both gave Robin an awkward pat on the back and waited for her to pull away from the hug. "I won't make a mess, I promise. You two are amazing," she said as she shuffled towards the house.

"T-... Take care of yourself!" Vivi called out, her voice wavering a little. Robin waved with her back to them as she slid open the doorwall and closed it behind her. She hit the lock and now it was Coby and Vivi's turn to deflate.

"Yeesh, I've never seen her explode like that," Coby said.

"Usually she just bottles it up where no one will ever find it," Vivi responded.

The first thing Robin did was go and lock every door. The front door, the garage door, she even secured all the windows. No one was getting in this fucking house. Once she felt secure, once total peace had been achieved, that's when she sat down on the couch and opened the book. But first she waited. She must have waited in the silence for five minutes before allowing herself to read a single page. Then her head immediately lifted up again, scanning the area.

Her paranoia got the better of her and she stood up to make one final check of the house. She even looked out the windows, making sure no one was coming up the sidewalk. Satisfied, she took her seat again and read through another page.

It became a sort of stop and go process for a while. She was jumping at shadows in the middle of the day. As such, it took her even longer to actually make progress in the story. But eventually, there wasn't much of the book left and her heart stopped racing over paranoia and started racing as she inched ever closer to the final conclusion. The pieces were all falling into place, the clues were starting to line up and Robin's hands were actually shaking as the detective lined everything up. It was literally a page away, the final reveal, and she knew what was coming.

The page turned, she sucked in a deep breath…

And then everything collapsed.

She read the paragraph again, making sure that it wasn't a mistake. There was no way. "Th-... The _pilot_? The _pilot's_ behind it all?! No, that can't be… No that-" she stammered. "No… No, no, no!"

She continued reading, if for no other reason than in the hopes there would be some kind of surprise bonus twist at the last page. "It can't be… No, that's such a cop-out… Not after all that setup, you can't… roll it back…" she muttered to herself, reaching the epilogue and feeling her heart drop out of her chest. She soldiered through the last final pages and sank down into the couch, letting the book fall from her hands and groaning as she covered her eyes with her forearm.

"You blew it… Aahh, all that build-up and you completely botch the ending."

Outside, the sun was setting. She looked out the window with weary eyes, watching the sky grow darker. An entire day wasted. She pondered for a moment, considered what kind of lesson could be offered, but came up empty-handed.

* * *

*No you won't, that's a lie. I betrayed everyone's trust. I fooled you all.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Six days after arriving in Little Garden

As mentioned previously, Luffy had the ability to wake up when it would be most inconvenient for the people around him. Nami was, unfortunately, the only person who slept around him these days. This is why she woke up not to him sleeping soundly next to her, but to his stupid grinning face mere inches away from hers. Before she could shout in surprise, he leaned in to kiss her. While he was doing that, he grabbed her wrists and tried pulling her out of bed.

She resisted, as the bed was comfy and she had no idea what had him so excited. "Come on come on come ooooooonn!" He insisted, making a big show of it with that smile plastered over his face.

"What has gotten you so- worked up-!" She said between pulling herself in the opposite direction. Eventually he relented, choosing to bounce up and down on his heels like a golden retriever with their leash in their mouth.

"Today's the day! Remember?! The day!" He said, waiting for her to remember something that he most likely did not actually tell her about.

Nami brushed her hair out of her face and glanced over Luffy's shoulder at the window. Through the blinds she could see the sun was barely up, which was absolute bullshit as far as she was concerned. Not when she didn't have any real responsibilities or a mother to make her get out of bed anymore. She didn't have a shift on the walls, which meant noon was going to be her new morning. "What day…? Luffy, use your words."

"The day Franky's gonna take us out on his cool Jeep, remember?! The Frankystein?!" God damn he was cute when he got excited, she couldn't deny that. But what in the world was he talking about- ohhhhhh.

"Ohhhhhh right, right." She dropped down back onto the pillow. "You don't really need me for that, Luffy. That's more your thing. You go have fun."

Luffy's mood immediately crashed and she could physically feel it. Even though she wasn't looking at him, she could tell all of his excitement had just evaporated. She turned her head warily towards him and seeing his shattered happiness filled her with immediate guilt.

"Aww… But we _never_ do anything together…" He said gloomily.

"Wh-what are you talking about? We live together. We do everything together!"

Luffy shoved his hands in his pockets and looked to the floor, pouting. "Yeah, but we still don't do anything or go anywhere… We haven't been on an adventure in, like, _forever_!"

Luffy loved adventures, just as much as he loved Nami. The two of them had met on an adventure, after all. He had spent five years alone in a zombie-overrun New York and he wanted to make up for lost time by seeing as much as he could. Back in Boston, whenever Bellemere needed to send out a scouting party or a scavenger group, Luffy was always first to volunteer, and he often managed to convince Nami to come with him.

Nami didn't quite share his level of enthusiasm for exploration. She preferred to map out the routes and take care of the planning, rather than the actual on-foot traveling. At least initially. Thinking back on it, she couldn't remember a time when she actually regretted going along whenever Luffy dragged her someplace outside of the walls. She just needed some kind of push to get her out in the first place.

Today's push came in the form of his poor dejected, borderline _wounded_ face. The worst part about it is that he wasn't even doing her the decency of trying to guilt her. Exaggerated guilt trips were the norm for Nami. She had pulled that kind of trick on her mother and sister for as long as she could remember. Crocodile tears were her bread and fucking butter.

But like everything else with Luffy, his heartbreak was 100% legitimate. He couldn't fake it if he tried.

Awash with guilt, she threw her hands up in surrender. "Okay okay, no you're right!" She stammered. "It's been a while, yeah! Let's go check out the cool car thing!"

Luffy's mood immediately brightened, just as quickly as it had soured. It was easy to pull Luffy out of a bad mood once the situation that put him in that mood was resolved. He didn't like to dwell on things and he forgave people easily if they actually wanted forgiveness. Nami tried her hardest not to take advantage of that. He kept her honest.

They were up and out the door before anyone else that morning. The outpost was quiet and still this early in the morning. Luffy was bouncing circles around her while they walked down the sidewalk to Franky and Sanji's place. "This is gonna be so cool! It'll be like when we found that army jeep that one time? But we couldn't get it started? So we had to just leave it there? But this one is way cooler because it actually drives and it has ARMOR PLATING!"

Nami hadn't actually seen the thing yet, so all she had to go on was Luffy's half-complete descriptions. The way he went on about it had her curious and his excitement was starting to infect her.

When they got to Franky and Sanji's front door, Luffy pounded on it with both fists like he was Kenshiro and the door was someone who had stolen food from a poor family. Sanji was the one who opened the door, the smell of a cooking breakfast wafting after him. "Oh hey, morning, Luffy. You're here for Franky's… thing, right?"

"Yeah we are! Hey, what's that smell?" Luffy asked, shoving past and inviting himself in.

Sanji didn't miss a beat, "Yeah help yourself, there's eggs and toast and stuff," he said with honest sincerity. If you lived with Luffy long enough, you eventually learned to excuse his lack of manners when food was involved. Instead Sanji turned back to Nami, grinning at her. "I take it you're just dropping him off here, right? Worried he might get lost on the way to our house?"

Nami shrugged nonchalantly. "Actually I figured I would join him. I'm a little curious about this Frankystein thing myself~"

This caught Sanji for a loop, but he quickly recovered. "Huh. Well… Okay! Allow me to prepare you a breakfast too~" his voice singing as he led her inside.

If there was one thing Sanji loved, it was preparing food for other people. Even while he was cooking more and more to keep Luffy satisfied, he was also hard at work preparing food for the Frankystein trip. Enough to keep them going if they were out longer than they planned on being out. Franky himself didn't appear until after breakfast, emerging from the garage and greeting Luffy and Nami with a booming "GOOOOOOD MORNING!"

He strutted over to Luffy and clapped him on the shoulder, shaking him in a borderline violent way. "You ready, kiddo?! I'm super pumped up! You and me, we're gonna show those zombies the power of ENGINEERING!" He finished it off with a triumphant pose, like a sentai ranger.

Luffy thought it was the greatest thing in the world and threw his arms up in celebration. "YEAH! And I'm even MORE excited 'cuz Nami's coming with us!"

This just made Franky cheer even louder, "YEAH! THE MORE THE MERRIER!"

"Aaaaand," Sanji said, butting in on their celebration. "If Nami's going, maybe I could, ah, tag along too?"

Luffy and Franky didn't pick up on the implication, they just continued on with their celebrating and quickly shifted into eagerly babbling about what they were going to do. Nami was a bit more perceptive than them and she side-eyed Sanji something fierce. "You're only going along because I'm going?"

Sanji smiled like he had a secret. "Ahaha, what? No, I just uh- Y'know, I figured I could go along to make sure everything goes… Smoothly. Those two would be fine on their own, but if they're roping you along, someone's gotta be there to help wrangle them. Right?"

This answer seemed to satisfy Nami and she dropped the issue for now. She still made a mental note to keep an eye on him too.

"Well come on, party of four! We got us a TRIP TO MAKE!" Franky bellowed, pushing Luffy and Nami out of their chairs and ushering everyone towards the garage.

"I've been workin' on this thing since I got here and it's finally road-worthy! There's still work I gotta do to make it SUPER perfect, so this is just a test run of what I got so far! That being said, lady and gentlemen, I give you… THE _FRANKYSTEIN_!"

He slammed on the garage door opener, allowing light to shine in and reveal the monster car in a conveniently dramatic and showy way. The light reflected off of the red, white, and blue paint, making it nearly glisten as the garage was illuminated.

There was a lot more superfluous junk attached to it, more than Robin saw when she was introduced to the car a chapter ago. Not that the trio knew that, since this was their first time seeing it, but you know.

For instance, aside from the cow catcher and the spikes, there appeared to be a double-barreled shotgun where the driver's side mirror would've gone. It was welded there on a pivot point, so the driver could still fire while they were driving, with a gun conveniently right there. That seemed to be the idea at least. There was also a mount on the top of the car, presumably where a minigun would go if Franky ever stumbled upon one. The doors had been welded shut and the frames around the windows were armored up, so the only way inside was to climb in through the back. This prevented any raider from opening the door and yanking them out, as well as make themselves a target if they tried to climb in. The tires had obviously been replaced as well, bigger and more intimidating than what one would find on a commercial jeep. There were also spikes on the rims of the tires because of course there were.

Luffy couldn't help but tear up. It was a thing of beauty, even in this incomplete state. He stood there, biting his lip and taking it all in. "It's… It's so beautiful…"

Sanji nodded in approval. At the very least, Franky knew what he was doing, and he had the means and willpower to make his dreams come true. Sanji could admire an accomplishment such as this, regardless of whether or not it was practical.

Nami didn't quite get the appeal, but then again she was never really a car person anyway. "You did all this yourself?"

"Yup! I even painted it myself! This thing is my pride and joy!" Franky beamed with pride, climbing through the back and into the driver's seat. He beckoned the others to join him.

"I guess it looks pretty cool," Nami said as she and the boys climbed into the thing. Sanji hopped into the front passenger seat, leaving Luffy and Nami to take the back.

"Wait 'til you see the thing in action! It's gonna blow your minds!" He cranked the engine and pulled out of the garage, onto the cul-de-sac. As he pulled up to the gate, he laid onto the horn, alerting whoever was on guard duty at the time. As it turned out, Baby came running up along the balcony.

"'Allo Monsieur Franky! You are heading out, yes?" she called out, waving down at them.

"You got it, kid! Mind opening up for us?"

She peered over the other side of the wall to make sure it was clear of any unfriendlies and then scurried down the ladder to hit the repurposed garage door opener that would bring the gate to life. When the gate came to a complete open, Franky waved to her. "See ya later, Baby!"

"Good luck out zhere! Be safe!" She smiled straight in Sanji's direction. "I will see you soon, Monsieur Sanji~!"

Sanji, caught off-guard, laughed like a man who forgot what laughter is and waved back to her. He felt like he could have made a better impression if he had actively scowled at her instead. Once they were clear of the wall, they could hear the low rumbling of the gate closing behind them and Sanji sank into his chair, dragging his hands across his face.

"So uh… Where are we headed?" Nami asked as Franky took them through the maze of subdivision streets. "Or is this just a drive around wherever thing?"

"I'm glad you asked!" Franky said with all the enthusiasm of a tour guide, except his was authentic and not the regurgitated fake enthusiasm from years of repeating the same thing over and over again. He pulled out of the subdivision, onto the main road. It was predictably deserted, the builders took the liberty of clearing out some of the roads near the outpost when it was under construction. "I got a special place in mind! We… are headed…" He paused for more dramatic effect, looking over his shoulder at his passengers. "For the… BOARDWALK!"

"THE BOARDWAAAAAALK!" Luffy cheered.

"I don't think any of the rides are running, Luffy," Nami said, grabbing his shoulder to calm him down.

"I- I know that! I wasn't-!" he stammered.

"Why do you want to go to the boardwalk?" Sanji asked.

"Because, we haven't been there yet! We didn't look at it while we were building the outpost, so maybe there's some stuff there. Besides, all the rides probably good for scrap or somethin'."

"Sounds like it could be dangerous," Nami muttered.

Franky stuck his hand out the window and patted the jeep's door. "That's why we got this sweet baby to keep us safe! Now!" he brought the Frankystein to a stop and turned around to face his companions. "Who's ready to see how this thing handles?"

"I AM I AM I AM!" Luffy shouted, waving his arm frantically like he was a student in class.

"HELL YEAH! EVERYONE PUT ON YOUR SEATBELTS!" Franky barked. Sanji and Nami hesitated to do anything. Franky drummed the steering wheel. "I'm serious! Safety first, that's the rule of the Frankystein!"

He waited until he heard the click of everyone buckling up, and then he stomped onto the gas pedal as hard as he could. The Frankystein lurched forward on squealing tires, leaving behind smoke where rubber met concrete. A tank like this wasn't meant for speed, but Franky had clearly decided to let physics sort it out rather than deal with it himself. Once the thing got moving, it clearly wouldn't stop for anything save the hand of God Himself.

"WE DON'T NEED TO GO THIS FAST!" Nami yelled, digging into the seat with her fingernails.

"YEAH WE DO THIS IS AWESOME!" Luffy cheered.

"IT'S GONNA GET EVEN BETTER! EVERYONE HOLD ON!" Franky ordered. He pointed forward with one hand and Sanji, in the front seat, had a clear view of what was up.

There was a group of zombies clustered in the middle of the road. Not too many, around five or so. Enough that a normal car would have trouble just running them down. Most cars could handle running down maybe one or two. But this was not most cars.

"Oh God no," he managed to get out before the Frankystein made impact.

The cowcatcher, armed with its spikes and blades and weight, turned the rotted walking corpses into a fine red paste. Like Gallagher himself had brought down his mighty mallet onto a watermelon full of blood, they splattered onto the windshield and would have coated the passengers as well, had Franky not had the foresight to roll the windows up. Franky cackled like a madman and Luffy joined in as well.

"YESSS IT TOTALLY WORKS! THIS THING IS SUPER INVINCIBLE!"

The windshield wipers kicked in and smeared away as much gore as possible, leaving it just barely visible. He barely let up on the gas either. Choosing instead to cruise down the miles towards the boardwalk at an exceptionally high speed. No matter how many pockets of zombies they seemed to run across, the Frankystein did not stop. It liquefied any corpse it came across.

Eventually Franky pulled off the gas and eased his way onto the brakes. The Frankystein, unfamiliar with such ideas as "stopping" grinded to a halt and by the time it settled to a stopped position, the passengers all lurched forward, glad Franky had instructed them to wear their seatbelts.

"THAT WORKED WAY BETTER THAN I COULD'VE EVER HOPED!"

"THAT'S WHAT IT DOES?!" Nami screeched. "YOU JUST RUN THEM DOWN?! THAT'S HOW IT WORKS?!"

"That's just how it works _now_! Once I get some more weapons on this thing, it'll be more than just a wrecking ball on wheels!" Franky looked through the blood-smeared window. "Hm. Proooobably gonna have to stock up on windshield wiper fluid, though. Hold on, gimme a sec to clear this off."

Franky crawled his way past everyone and hopped off the back of the jeep. Sanji, with shaking hands, reached for his cigarette pack and lighter. He fumbled around until he could light one properly and wasn't at all surprised when Nami's hand thrust forward into his field of vision with an open palm. He placed one of his smokes and the lighter in her hand and she also fumbled to light one.

"WASN'T THAT THE COOLEST THING IN THE WORLD?!" Luffy squealed, bouncing in his seat.

"I thought we were going to die so many times…" Nami whispered.

"I wish he would've told us he was going to do that…" Sanji sank into his chair, sucking in a deep breath. "Where are we anyway?"

The trio glanced around at their surroundings. They had spent the majority of the trip/roller-coaster-from-hell driving east towards Jenkinson's Boardwalk, and now they found themselves in what used to be one of those touristy towns with locally owned shops on either side of the street. "Looks like the kind of place my mom would've liked to go shopping…" Nami noted. She unbuckled her seatbelt and lifted herself up to get a better look.

"Hey! You think there's any bars around here?! Maybe we can get lucky like the last time we were in a place like this!" Luffy asked, not bothering to wait for a response before he unbuckled his own seatbelt and clambered over the back of the jeep.

Nami's eyes widened and she climbed out after hm. "Ooh good idea!"

Sanji scrambled to get his seatbelt unbuckled and did the same. "Wait for me, I'm not letting Nami go searching around by herself!"

"Hey guys!" Franky called out from the front. "What's that over there?"

The trio looked over to where Franky was pointing. Ahead of the Frankystein, down the street, was a haphazard gathering of abandoned police cars and a SWAT truck. In front of them were road barricades, scattered about and knocked over. They looked like they hadn't been touched in years.

"Oh damn, looks like they tried to block this part of the road off or something. Maybe the boardwalk was an evac zone?" Sanji asked. The others shrugged or shook their head.

"Whatever it is, clearly didn't work too well or else they wouldn't have ditched 'em." Franky shrugged as he said it. "Ah well! I'm sure the Frankystein can plow through 'em if we take it slow! I finished cleaning off the windshield so we're good t' go!"

"Aw come on, can't we look around a little bit?! We're already stopped, we should go exploring!" Luffy said, already scanning buildings to determine which one would have the best sweet loot.

"I think we can afford to look around a little bit. Besides, empty police cars might mean a decent stockpile of weapons!" Nami added.

"But-... But guys… Boardwalk…" Franky said, trying his hardest not to pout.

Sanji shrugged. "We'll look around for a bit and if things get dicey, we just make a mad dash for the car! Easy as that."

"YESSS! Double adventure! Exploring a cool town _and_ exploring a boardwalk! See, Nami?! Aren't you glad you came now?!" Luffy exclaimed, grabbing her wrists and spinning her around.

"What's the worst that could happen?" Sanji said.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7: The Worst That Could Happen

So none of our four were particularly well-armed for zombie killing. Sure, Luffy didn't go anywhere without his baseball bat and Nami had her knife, and everyone had at pistol. But that was more for defense than anything. So they had to take precaution before they could start their looting. Precaution today involved Nami throwing a brick through the window of a shop near the Frankystein and waiting to see what would come crawling out. After a minute passed with nothing emerging, they concluded the town must be relatively clear.

"Aww, that's boring!" Luffy pouted. His arms dropped to his sides with a huff.

"I'll take boring over deadly," Nami said. She grabbed his wrist and pulled him toward the barricade. "Come on, let's see what's in those cars."

The police barricade didn't get too far before it was overrun, it seemed. The cars were parked haphazardly in the middle of the street, and the SWAT van's doors were still hanging open. Upon closer inspection, the police car trunks had all been pried open already, and anything they may have contained was picked clean.

"Aw dammit, someone beat us to it…" Franky muttered, slamming the last trunk shut. Because the lock was busted, it didn't actually close and just sort of bounced partially open.

"They must've grabbed the guns and ran, all the shops are still intact," Sanji noted. He pointed to the buildings on either side of the road, all with locked doors and intact windows. Save of course the Chinese restaurant Nami vandalized.

"Guess people don't care about looting, uh…" Franky looked around at the signs hanging above the front doors. "Restaurants, banks, and jewelry stores."

Nami perked up at that last bit. "Ooh, jewelry store! I'll go check that out!" She started skipping across the street, toward the building next to the barricade.

Sanji started after her. "Ah, wait, Nami! Lemme go with you! Shouldn't go looting without backup, right? Hahaha!"

Nami stopped to look over her shoulder at him. She raised an eyebrow but didn't say anything more. She also didn't say anything to make him stop, so he followed after her. That left Luffy and Franky to fend for themselves.

The duo watched Sanji and Nami set out to pick the lock on the door, and Franky idly kicked one of the cop car's tires. "So!" He said, clapping his hands and rubbing them together. "While they're doing that, wanna raid the bank?" He gestured over his shoulder with his thumb at the bank across the street from the jewelry store.

Luffy watched Nami let out a cheer as she got the door open and the two of them disappeared inside. He thought about Franky's question for a second. "Hey, that's like hunting for treasure! Nami and Sanji are getting all the gold sceptres and crowns and we'd get all the coins and stuff!"

Franky let out a laugh, "Somethin' like that, kid!"

Money was, of course, useless these days. But as they approached the bank's chained front doors, Franky said "I always wanted to sneak into a bank vault, y'know? Not rob the place or anything, I just wanted to see that much money all in one place!" He gave the chain an experimental tug and pushed on the door. Neither budged at all. "Damn. Guess they were worried about-" the sudden sound of decayed hands slamming against the glass made both of them jump back.

Inside the bank entrance, snarling and clawing at the glass, were at least a dozen zombies, most of which were decked out in riot gear or SWAT uniforms. Helmets, bulletproof vests, and thick jackets. For all the good it obviously did them.

"Whoa! I guess we know what happened to the police guys!" Franky said, running his fingers through his hair.

Something next to them caught Luffy's attention. They hadn't noticed it walking up, but on the window next to the bank's entrance, someone had spraypainted "PRAY FOR US". Luffy scowled at the sign. "They locked them in there instead of just killing them. That's no fun! They're even in uniform, didn't they know how many _points_ that is?!"

Franky crossed his arms and shrugged. "Well, kid, I think these poor saps got locked up back before we knew what was goin' on with all this zombie business."

"That's so dumb. Come on, let's get in there and smash 'em ourselves!" Luffy raised his bat until Franky grabbed him by the collar and pulled him back.

"I don't think that's a good idea. Don't think we could really shoot through those helmets. Just leave 'em be, we'll find something else to do."

Luffy grumbled and kicked at the ground, but he ended up turning away from the oh-so-tempting prize of multiple kills. He looked at the police cars once again and a thought managed to hatch in his brain. "Hey.. Franky! Do you think you could put those police sirens on the Frankystein? Like, put the lights on and stuff!"

Franky looked from the police cars to the Frankystein down the street. He scratched at his chin. "Hhhhuhh… I bet… I bet I could! I bet I could rewire that! Run to the Frankystein and get my toolbox out from under the passenger seat! We can try to rip the lights off!"

While Luffy scurried off and Franky walked back to the police cars, they didn't notice the glass doors starting to crack from the pressure of all those zombies leaning against them.

But you did.

Anyway, while this was going on, Nami was kneeling down in front of the locked jewelry store door, armed only with a bobby pin and determination.

"I didn't know you knew how to pick locks," Sanji said, standing over her with his hands in his pockets.

"Yeah, you can blame my mom for that," she said.

"I thought your mom was a cop."

"I didn't say she taught me how to do it. Boom!" At first Sanji thought she was punctuating her own zinger, but in reality she was celebrating her lockpicking success. The door swung open and a bounty of sparkly gold jewelry sealed in glass cases lay before them. "Eeehehehe," Nami cackled, rubbing her hands together greedily. "Jackpot!"

Before anything, they gave the shop a quick sweep. The shop was small and cramped, the glass cases taking up most of the floor space and forming natural walkways between them. There was a staircase in the back, near a supply closet that led up to a loft. Evidently, the shop's owner had lived there. She also died there if the corpse on the bed was any indication.

"Looks like we're all clear!" Nami said, shrugging off the body and gliding down the stairs. None of the stuff was considered high class expensive jewelry before Zombie Day, and of course it had no monetary value now. But that wasn't the point to Nami. She brushed the dust off the cases and looked some of them over. When she found one containing a piece she liked, it wasn't hard to open them. If she couldn't pick the lock, she'd just slam down on the case with the handle of her knife until the glass broke.

"So what are you doing here, Sanji?" she asked without bothering to look up from the bracelet she picked out of the broken glass.

"What uh… What do you mean?" he asked back

"I mean, you aren't here for jewelry. Not that you aren't a snazzy dresser," she said. He thanked her. "You weren't trying to protect me. Well you are, but that's not all it is. So what's up?" She finally looked up at him to see his reaction.

Sanji sucked in a breath. "I uh… I need your help," he exhaled.

"My help? With what?"

"Okay, so… Baby 5. I think… I really like her. And I sort of think she might like me too? And I don't really know how to handle that."

Nami found a necklace that was more interesting than what he was saying and looked it over. "Okay, well, I'm not exactly her friend or anything. I can't help you hook up with her."

"No no, it's not that!" Sanji said. "I just… I want to know how you handled it. I mean, I've never been one for committed relationships and I know you were the same way until Luffy came along. I just want to know how that worked for you."

"Oh." Nami grimaced. "I think you misunderstand. You just had casual flings by choice. My lack of solid relationships was because of… Other reasons."

"Wait, really? What do you mean?"

"I don't know if you're aware of this, Sanji, but I'm kind of what people refer to as a 'fuck-up'. Did I tell you about the time I burned down a motel?"

"No, I don't think you ever did."

"Okay. Well, don't ask Robin about it," she shrugged. "I don't know what to tell you, though. All I really have is some advice a clown gave me when I was first thinking about dating Luffy."

"Wait… A clown gave you advice?" Sanji pondered that for a moment. "What kind of adventure was that road trip anyway…?"

"Just go for it. Do what you feel is right, because otherwise you'll never know for sure. Life's too short these days to doubt yourself." Nami pocketed a handful of rings. "I mean that's what he told me at least. It worked that one time."

Before Sanji had time to consider Nami's advice, the sound of a gunshot rang out from outside. "Speaking of life's too short… What the hell are they doing out there?" Nami said as they headed for the front window.

The boys were working on dismantling the siren lights on a cop car. Luffy was on top of the hood, poking at the siren with a screwdriver because he had no idea what he was doing but he wanted to help. Franky was in the front seat, trying to take apart the dashboard because he also didn't know what he was doing, but he didn't know less about what he was doing than Luffy.

Neither of them noticed when the glass doors holding the zombies back at the bank ended up shattering, allowing them to spill out onto the street. Luffy saw them first, shambling towards their potential meal, and decided the best way to deal with it would be to hop off the roof of the car, grab his bat, and meet the horde. Fortunately, Franky felt the car shift when he jumped off and looked up just in time to scramble out of the car and grab Luffy by the back of his shirt. "Whoa, kid! I get it, you're eager, but guns first!" He drew his pistol, from where is anyone's guess, and opened fire on one of the zombies that were slowly closing the gap.

The bullet lodged itself in the zombie's helmet, which would have probably downed him if he were still alive. Because he was quite undead, he really did not give a solid fart about being momentarily jostled and kept on trucking.

"Welp. Time for plan B," Franky put his pistol away and prepared to run.

"Right! Smashing time!" Luffy also prepared to run, but in the absolute wrong direction and Franky had to hold him back yet again.

"Kid, I appreciate the enthusiasm, but we aren't pulling this one off. Don't think of it as retreating, think of it as advancing towards future victory. C'mon!" He pulled Luffy towards the jewelry store.

Luffy only fussed a little bit, and the two of them burst through the door, nearly knocking Nami and Sanji on their asses. Once Franky regained his balance, he whirled around and shoulder-tackled the door, holding it back against the onslaught of undead SWAT officers who wanted that sweet, sweet living flesh

"What did you do?!" Nami shrieked.

"It wasn't our fault!" Luffy shrieked back. It kind of was a little.

"Hey, this door ain't gonna hold!" Franky growled. It rattled more and more as the old hinges holding it to the wall began to give way.

Sanji looked to the back of the store. "Back door! Place has gotta have a back door!" He ran back towards the stairs and groaned in frustration. There was indeed a back door, but the shop owner, thinking it would keep her safe, had boarded it up something fierce. No way they would be able to get it open before the zombies made it through. "Shit, alright, forget that, everyone upstairs!"

There was a cracking sound as the door tore free of its hinges. Franky gave it one final push and bolted for the back, along with Nami and Luffy. The zombies weren't too fazed, but it did buy the living ones a little extra time.

Sanji made it up. Nami made it up. Franky made it up. Luffy, though, stepped on a loose stair in just the right and also wrong way that it came loose. His ankle rolled and his foot slipped out from underneath him. He fell forward, slamming into the stairs, scrambling to get back to his feet. Trying to put weight on his ankle just made him stumble again, though.

"Luffy!" Nami cried out. She dove after him, reaching for his arm and pulling him back up the remaining steps. Both of them collapsed to the floor, and then quickly had to roll out of the way as Sanji and Franky came barreling past, pushing a couch towards the stairs. It toppled down, taking out a few zombies that had just started climbing the stairs, and formed a helpful barrier to buy them some time.

Once they could afford a breath, Sanji groaned out "Now what?! I can't believe we got pinned like this, we've been doing this for years! We're smarter than this!"

"If we could plan for every little thing, the world wouldn't have ended in the first place!" Franky countered.

"GUYS! LUFFY'S HURT!" Nami shouted. She had scrambled back over to him, helping him sit up while he clutched at his ankle. He hissed in pain and Nami tried helping him stand up. The second he put weight on the bad leg, he about toppled over and nearly took his girlfriend with him. She helped him hobble away from the staircase and had him collapse in a recliner. "We can't stay here, we need to find a way down. There's gotta be a fire escape or something, right?"

The loft had three major windows that someone could feasibly climb out of. None of them led to a fire escape. "Seriously!? That is a serious safety hazard! Someone could die because of this!" Nami shrieked.

" _We're_ gonna die because of this!" Sanji shouted back. Luffy groaned at his own uselessness and Franky kept busy by grabbing anything he could find laying around the loft and throwing it down the stairs to keep the zombies back.

Sanji flung open one of the windows, the one that opened to the back of the store. He swore under his breath as he looked down at the ground. Even if they had pried open the back door, there was a pickup truck blocking the way. It was practically directly beneath the window and Sanji made a quick calculation in his head. He was not happy with the results. Not because it wouldn't work, but because he didn't want to do it. "Franky! Toss me your keys!"

"Got it!" Franky threw the key ring towards Sanji, who reached out to catch them… And missed. The keys flew right out the window as Sanji closed his hand around empty air. The other three stared at him in horror and disbelief, and he waved dismissively. "It's all good, I was going that way anyway!"

He climbed onto the windowsill and leaned in, gripping the ledge with his hands. "SANJI! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Nami shrieked.

"Being a big fucking hero, I guess?" And with that, he dropped himself out of the window and onto the hood of the truck.

He hit the hood a little harder than he wanted to, but fortunately no one was around to see it. And also he didn't hurt himself. He scrambled off the hood and scanned the area for the car keys. Scooping them up off the pavement, he rounded the corner back onto the street, at an intersection next to the jewelry store. To his left, several stores down, was the Frankystein. To his near immediate right was a procession of zombies trying to funnel their way into the jewelry store.

Sanji lit up a cigarette and took a long drag to calm himself. This was really going to suck. He stepped into the street, within a decent range of the undead, and then started waving his arms. "HEY! SHITHEADS! OVER HERE! CHECK IT OUT, FRESH MEAL, SMOKED TO PERFECTION!"

Some of them turned toward the new sound and Sanji took a step back. "THAT'S IT! COME ON, THIS WAY! ALL YOU CAN EAT BUFFET!" A group of six split off from the herd, more interested in the noisy meal in front of them. That was enough of a start as far as Sanji was concerned. He Pied Piper'd them away from the store, leading them towards the Frankystein with promises of fresh cut steak at affordable prices.

And then something caught his eye. Only for a second, but as he passed by the alley between two shops, he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He immediately looked toward it, worried it might be another zombie. What he saw was even more concerning. He didn't get a good look at them, but he swore he saw a person, a living person, running away, rounding a corner and disappearing from sight just as Sanji turned to look.

What really concerned him is that he swore the person looked familiar.

He didn't get a lot of time to think on it. The sound of snarling a few yards away snapped his attention back to his original task. He made a dash for the Frankystein, slid around to the back, and hopped in. He was facing down six armored walking corpses, but he was in a mobile force of nature. He slammed on the gas, making the tires squeal just as Franky had done earlier. He didn't have quite the speed, but the effect was more or less the same. Four of them were knocked ass-over-teakettle, one of which was immediately flattened underneath the heavy tires, and two were impaled onto the spikes in front of either headlight. Still alive in an unconventional sense, they uselessly swiped at Sanji behind the wheel, no hope of ever catching him.

Sanji stopped a few yards from the entrance of the store and leaned out the driver side window. He grabbed the shotgun mounted where the side mirror would've been and aimed it at the zombie impaled on the spike. He pulled the trigger and blew the thing's head to pieces, and the kickback tore the shotgun from its mount. Hey at least now he had a better weapon than his pistol.

In order to draw them all out of the shop, Sanji slammed his hand on the horn. Inside the loft, Franky had heaved a bowling ball down the stairs and beaned one zombie right in the head, smashing the front of the helmet and turning its skull to mush. "HA! FINALLY GOT ONE!" He yelled. He yelled even louder when all three of them heard a horn rendition of _La Cucaracha_ playing from outside. "Hey, Sanji made it! That's the Frankystein's horn!"

"Of course it is," Nami muttered to herself.

Of the remaining five, three of them broke off to investigate the noise. Sanji scrambled out of the jeep and hid behind it, waiting for something to show up. When they emerged from the shop door, Sanji took aim and blasted them away. The recoil forced the gun into his shoulder and he staggered back. He had never really used a shotgun before, but the nice thing about them is you don't have to aim.

There were only two left, still trying to claw their way past the shop. Sanji dashed back through the front door, planted himself in front of the last two, and yelled out "SORRY, WE'RE CLOSED!"

Then he yelled out "SON OF A BITCH THAT HURTS!" because he pulled the trigger and the recoil again jammed the butt into his shoulder, right where it had last time. At the very least, they were all dead.

"Alright! Guys?! You still up there?!" he called out up the stairs.

"We're all fine!" Nami called back. "Well, except for Luffy…"

"Good! Let's get the hell outta here and go home." Sanji let himself relax and surveyed the damage he had done. He had to admit, he was pretty proud of himself.

It was a bit of an ordeal getting Luffy down. Franky had to go first, letting Nami support Luffy on her shoulder. She helped him climb over the couch and helped him hobble to the car. He grumbled most of the way there. But it was less because of the pain and more because he could see all the zombies he didn't get to kill. "That's like… Over a hundred points! That's so unfair!"

Sanji leaned back against the jeep, looking as cool as he possibly could. "One hundred and _twenty_ points.

"Hundred and ten. That one's still alive." Nami pointed to the other zombie impaled on the Frankystein's spikes.

Luffy, briefly gaining some hope that maybe this trip wouldn't be a total bust, started to raise his arm, bat in hand… Only to watch in horror as Sanji yanked the thing's helmet off and stabbed it in the head. The body went limp and Luffy's heart shattered.

"Hundred and twenty."

They loaded Luffy into the Frankystein and Nami had him lay his leg over her lap to keep it elevated. She sighed at the way he was pouting in the backseat. His leg hurt, yes, but he was far more angry that the injury kept him from bumping up his score. He hadn't had a chance to rank up since they arrived in Little Garden.

"Stop frowning, little baby. We'll go out and find a fire station or something for you to massacre," Nami said. "Once you're all better." Luffy seemed to brighten up a little at that.

Baby was there to greet them when they arrived back at Little Garden, opening the gate and letting them in. She climbed down the balcony to more closely investigate the gore splattered across the front of the jeep. "Ah… I see you four were busy?"

"You could say that. Gimme a hand here?" Nami said, easing Luffy up and helping him out of the truck. He slid off the back and Baby rushed to grab him.

"Oh, Luffy, did you hurt yourself?" Baby asked, looking him over. Nami hopped off the back as well, followed by Sanji.

"I didn't get to do anything cool…" Luffy mumbled. Baby stifled her laughter and passed the guy back to his girlfriend.

"I'm gonna take this thing in to get it hosed off! You guys gonna be okay?" Franky asked, leaning out the driver window. The others waved him off and he pulled into his and Sanji's driveway.

"Soooo? What happened?" Baby asked. "Zhe jeep is covered in gore and Luffy cannot walk!"

A lightbulb lit up above Nami's head and she grinned as wide as she could. "Well, I need to get Luffy to Law, but _Sanji_ would be more than happy to tell you how he saved our lives!"

Baby's eyes widened and she turned to Sanji. "Is zhis true?! You were a, how you say, hero?"

Sanji's heart started racing and he had to struggle to force his words out. "Well, I guess you could-"

"You're damn right he was a hero! Go on! Tell her all about it! Big damn hero," Nami said as she started walking Luffy towards Law's house. She looked over her shoulder to catch Baby listening to Sanji's every word with rapt attention as he regaled their adventure. His eyes caught with Nami's and he gave her a quick nod. She responded with a thumbs up, which left her boyfriend confused.

"What's… What's going on?" he asked.

"Oh nothing, don't worry about it~ I'm just doing my job as the kindest, most generous person in the world~"


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8: Nine days after arriving in Little Garden

There was something out there.

Zoro thought he was seeing things at first. A trick of the light. The sun reflecting off the window in a weird way. But every time he circled the outpost's wall, he looked for it, and saw something peculiar every time. There was movement in one of the windows of a house across the street from the cul-de-sac's entrance. It could've been a zombie trapped in a bedroom, stumbling into the wall, but Zoro couldn't be sure. He had a rifle, but the scope wasn't a high-class sniper scope. He could see the curtain shuffling, but it was drawn, so he couldn't see inside.

After the fourth loop around the wall, he planted himself at the entrance and refused to move. It was evening now. The sun was to his back, giving him perfect light without blinding him. He was determined to see for sure if there was anything there. He waited for something to happen, barely allowing himself to blink. His patrol partner appreciated the break.

Vivi collapsed next to him, sitting on the edge of the balcony and dangling her feet off the side. "Are we taking a break? Thank God, my feet are killing me… I wasn't built to walk that much at once…" she groaned pitifully. "I need new shoes. Remind me to put that on the request list when our shift's up."

Zoro said nothing. He was good at ignoring people. Besides, this was more important than Vivi's lack of stamina.

She leaned back until she was laying flat on the balcony and looked up at him. "Can I ask you a question? Are you a pirate or a samurai? Or… both?" She waited for a response, and when one didn't come, she continued. "I'm not making fun of you, I'm really wondering. Do I call you Mr. Bushido or Cap'n?" Still nothing from him, and she twisted her face up. "Are you not talking to me because you're mad I shushed you at the meeting a few days ago?"

When he still didn't respond, she jumped to her feet and tried to shove him, screaming "What are you looking at?!"

He didn't move at all from her attempt to knock him over, but he did mutter "Someone's watching us…"

Vivi's irritation melted away. "R-really? Are you sure…?"

Zoro squinted through the scope. "Not exactly. But it looks that way. I think someone's in that house over there."

Vivi tried to look where he was, but without the aid of a scope or binoculars, she couldn't make out much. "What makes you think that?"

"Saw a light reflecting off that window. Could've been imagining it. Or it could be the sun bouncing off a sniper scope."

Vivi shivered. "O-oh. So… what do you see now?"

"Nothing. But I'm gonna wait for that to change."

Vivi, just to be safe, sank down behind the wall until she was perfectly hidden, crouched in safety. She waited in silence for something to happen, but Zoro remained still as a statue. She fidgeted, took a few breaths to try and calm herself. But he remained solid, like a bird of prey watching its next meal. After what felt like an eternity, but was really more like five minutes, Vivi whispered "Are you sure you saw-"

And then Zoro pulled the trigger and yelled out "SHIT!" He lowered the rifle in anger and growled. "Dammit, there _was_ someone there! I saw him! Saw his face looking through the curtain!"

"Wh-what?! Did you hit him?!"

Zoro groaned in anger. "No, it hit the wall instead! I've never been good with these things. Come on, we need to get a group together and get out there, try to catch him!" He rushed for the nearest ladder.

He didn't make it to the ladder. Instead, a bullet tore through his side and he fell forward, off the balcony, and hit the ground like a sack of wet sponges. Vivi shrieked his name and Zoro could feel the world spinning and his eyesight in his good eye going wild.

Meanwhile, inside Law's basement, Baby was making it difficult for the doctor to get any work done.

He was attempting to analyze a blood sample he had drawn from Robin, but a lack of proper equipment plus the French maid pestering him was stomping all over any progress that could be made.

"I just wish I could have been zhere… I would have loved to see him saving zhe day! Not zhat I zhink I would need to be rescued, but… If I had to be rescued by someone, I would like it to be him. He seems so dashing, no? Like Errol Flynn!" she sighed wistfully. "I wish I could get some action…"

Robin and Law both fumbled a little, looking to her in shock. "Zhere is no action anymore! I have not been outside since you all arrived! I have not been in a single fight! I am growing so bored wizh zhese surroundings!"

So she didn't mean what they thought she meant. Baby crossed her arms and sat up straight. "You know what I zhink?" She asked, prodding at Law with a finger.

He didn't look up from his notes, busying himself with scribbling hypotheses and occasionally muttering a question to Robin herself, who was sitting on the examination table.

"What do you think, Baby?" Robin finally asked when Law failed to respond. Law shot her a betrayed look.

"I zhink we should add extermination raids to our schedule, no? Send a team out to ensure zhere are no clusters lurking around zhe area? We should be… How you say, proactive! To prevent possible catastrophe!"

Robin nodded. "And I'm sure that's not just a way for you to inflate your score or anything, is it?"

Baby laughed politely. "Oh, I am always zhinking about improving my score! But zhis would also be in zhe interest of safety, no?"

Law gripped his pen just a little tighter and hunched over just a little more.

"You know, I don't think I ever asked. Baby, what _is_ your score?" Robin asked with a grin on her face. She quickly glanced over at Law and could almost hear him grinding his teeth.

Baby immediately perked up. "I am so glad you asked! By my count, I am sitting pretty at 2,886!"

Robin gaped at her. "Tw-two thousand-! My, but you're efficient, aren't you?"

Baby beamed with pride. "And what about you, Robin?"

"Only 843," she said somewhat sheepishly. "I'm not quite the killing machine you are. How about you, Law?"

Law didn't bother looking up. "I don't play."

Robin gasped in mock-offense and Baby scoffed. "Still?! I told you to start playing! It would do wonders for your stress!"

What would have really done wonders for Law's stress would be the ability to work in peace. But that obviously wouldn't happen, so instead he crumpled up the piece of paper he was scribbling notes on, and threw it against the wall. "God! This is pointless, I'm not getting anywhere!"

Robin shrugged, shaking her head slowly. "I told you. You wouldn't find anything new, just as much in the dark as every other doctor who's looked at me." Her nonchalance did nothing to make him feel better.

"How do you not care about this?! The cure could be _inside_ you! The answer could be right there, just out of reach. And it doesn't drive you crazy?!"

She half-smiled. "Oh it does. Or rather, it did. I used to work myself up into a panic worrying about it. Worrying that I would die before I found answers, or that there was no one left who _could_ give me answers. I'd been at it for years, you know. Talked to people wherever I went, hoping someone could provide. I even tried to get myself to the CDC, but ah… Mh. That didn't end well." She sighed. "I ended up tying it to my self-worth. I figured if I couldn't be the cure, then there wasn't any reason I should be alive."

Baby, who could empathize with throwing oneself entirely into the aid of others, was on the verge of tears. "But you are worzh so much more zhan zhat, Robin! You know zhis, no?"

"Oh, I eventually realized that the idea of maybe saving the world somehow was not worth risking my life or my sanity over. If Law can somehow figure something out, then that would be great. I'll let him draw as much blood and skin samples as he wants. But if nothing comes of it, then… It wasn't meant to be."

Law stared at her like she sprouted multiple arms and used all of them to flip him off. Equal parts amazed and offended, he scoffed. "Unbelievable. I don't get you. You're so… blase about everything. Nothing fazes you! You are the most apathetic person I've ever met! I swear, someone could get shot, and your reaction would be to just shrug and go 'shit happens'!"

The three of them heard the front door slam open, followed by Vivi's panicked voice shrieking out "ZORO'S BEEN SHOT!"

Baby and Robin both glared at Law as though it were somehow his fault.

They heard stumbling down the stairs, Perona and Vivi supporting Zoro while he clutched at his side. He had awoken, but he was very much disoriented, to put it lightly. Robin slid off the examination table and helped Zoro onto it, letting him lay down and stepping back so Law could get in. While he was looking over the wound, Robin crossed her arms and looked to Vivi. "Someone _shot_ him?!"

Vivi paused for a second to catch her breath. "We were on guard duty, just walking around and Zoro thought he saw something in a window! So he started watching this house with the rifle and right when he said he saw someone's face, he turns around and BANG! A bullet rips through him and he falls right off the balcony!" She looked over Robin's shoulder at Law. "H-hey, is he gonna be alright…?"

"I've had worse…" Zoro groaned through a ragged breath.

"I believe it. Bullet clipped your side, cut you pretty bad, but I think you'll be fine. The bigger concern is probably your concussion. You said he fell off the balcony? Perona, go get him some acetaminophen while I bandage him up.

While Perona scrambled through the cabinets to find some painkillers, Baby grabbed Vivi's arm and led her up the stairs. "Where are you two going-" Robin tried to say before they vanished. "Fine. I'll just talk about our compromised safety with the one suffering a concussion."

At the top of the stairs, Baby turned to Vivi, not breaking her stride. "You are going to show me which house zhe shot came from," she said, shoving the girl outside. "And we are going zhere before zhe shooter can escape."

"What?! Whoa, wait, that's insane! We can't go out there, he might be expecting that!" she protested. Baby shoved her toward the gate.

"Zhat is why we are taking a van! Go! Hurry! Open zhe gate, I will be right zhere!" Baby didn't give Vivi a chance to protest or come up with a better plan, she was already breaking off into a sprint towards her and Robin's house. "I WILL NOT STAND FOR SOMEONE HURTING ONE OF MY FRIENDS!" she shouted.

Vivi growled and stammered and kicked at the ground in impotent frustration. She scurried toward the gate and slammed the button with her palm. Then she clutched her palm and went "Ow ow ow ow!" She whirled around to see Baby driving toward her, clearing the gate and then slamming on the brake.

"GET IN!" she yelled and Vivi again smacked the gate's button, running through the door before it closed on her. She leapt into the passenger side, which prompted Baby to yell "SEATBELT!"

Baby gave Vivi only a second to buckle up, and then pealed out, arriving at the house Vivi pointed to in seconds. If they were still being watched, the sniper would have to be one hell of a shot to hit them. Baby nearly plowed through the garage door, stopping in the driveway, out of sight of the window where the bullet had come from.

She reached back over the driver's seat. Vivi didn't notice the shotgun laying in the seat behind her until Baby grabbed it up. "Stay here. Do not go out and risk your cute little head," Baby ordered through clenched teeth. She flung the door open and marched up the steps to the front porch. Standing in front of the door, she screamed something in French that Vivi didn't understand, but roughly translated to "Open this door and face me you Godforsaken coward, so that I can blow a hole in your chest and then rip your genitals off and shove them straight into the cavity that used to be your internal organs and I will laugh at your tears."

This failed to elicit a response of any kind, so Baby picked the lock on the front door. Well, she didn't so much as pick it as she did shoot the doorknob and make it not be there anymore. The point is that the door was open.

Vivi sat in the passenger seat and watched Baby vanish inside the house. She waited, nervously and patiently, for something to happen. She nearly jumped out of her seat, held in place by her seatbelt, when she heard Baby let out a monstrous, bloodcurdling shriek. She sat in mortified silence, looking toward the front door, afraid someone other than Baby would emerge.

Fortunately it was Baby who finally stepped outside. Unfortunately, she didn't look happy. She slammed the door shut behind her, but because it didn't have a doorknob, it just sort of bounced off the doorframe.

"HE IS GONE! ALREADY FLED!"

Baby fumed her way back to the van, swearing in French and kicking over a long-dead, dried out potted plant on the path leading from the porch to the driveway. She climbed back into the van, gripped the steering wheel in a white-knuckle death grip, and screamed with her mouth closed.

Vivi, biting her bottom lip, risked a glance Babyward. "Hey, uh… how about you take a breath? You're starting to scare me." She spoke with the clear and calm tone of a customer service representative dealing with an irate customer. The only difference is that Vivi still had her soul.

"You should be scared! Someone is out to kill us! Someone we do not know! So we do not even know how we offended zhem!" She looked over to Vivi. "It could just as easily have been you who was shot!" There was less fury in her voice, gradually shifting over to a concerned motherly/big sister tone. "Your pretty head would have gone 'pop'!" she flourished this by mimicking an explosion with her hand.

"Uh… That's not making me feel better…" Vivi whimpered.

"It is not supposed to." Baby retorted. "We cannot allow zhis… zhis…"

"Madman?"

"FUCKER!"

"Oh."

"To go unpunished! We must find some way to track him down! Search parties! Patrols! Somezhing!" She started the van and tore out of the driveway. "I am not letting zhe safety of zhis outpost, of my _friends_ , be compromised."

Upon arriving back at the gate, Baby laid on the horn until they saw a flash of pink hair appear over the wall, and then vanish just as quickly. After a moment, the gate grumbled to life and slid open just enough for the van to pass through. Once they were past, it slid shut, and when they stepped out, Vivi learned the pink hair belonged to her husband when he threw his arms around her and held her as tight as possible.

"Oh my God, you're okay! I heard what happened and I tried to find you, but you were missing and I thought you were hurt and one of the vans was gone and-"

"It's okay, I'm okay, I'm fine…" she wrapped her arms around him as well. "Baby dragged me to the house the shot came from-"

"YOU WHAT?!" Coby shrieked. At Baby, not at Vivi.

"It was empty, do not worry. She was in no harm," Baby said. She looked around. The streets were empty, she expected something of a commotion. "Where is everyone?"

Coby didn't let Vivi go just yet. "Well, after you two vanished, Robin told us all what happened. Law's making sure Zoro doesn't try to get out of bed and everyone else is in the storage house trying to work out what to do. I uh… ducked out to wait for you two…"

Things were not going too well for the rest of the outpost. Instead of trying to rationally work out a way to deal with the present situation, they had opted to stand around the living room and talk over one another in a jumbled mess of several conversations going on at the same time.

"So we're gonna go find this guy and kick the crap outta him, right?!" Luffy said, pounding his fist into his palm.

Nami rolled her eyes and poked him in the chest. "No, we're not, because we don't even know where to _find_ the guy!"

Sanji looked to Franky across the room. "What the hell, man?! Didn't you check to see if we had any neighbors when you started building this place?!"

"Hey, of course we did! We checked the whole neighborhood! This guy had to have just gotten here or something!" Franky protested.

Robin was sitting on the couch, leaning forward with her hands steepled in thought. "We can't rule out the possibility that he's part of a group, though. I'm worried we might have an army watching us…"

"Oh fuck that!" Bonney yelled, backing away from Robin. "I'm not doing guard duty if a bunch of snipers are waiting to blow my head off!"

Vivi, Baby, and Coby walked in on this nonsense and Coby silently gestured to it. Vivi, feeling confident that she could at least handle this, cracked her knuckles and yelled out "QUIET!"

Everyone shut up almost instantly. Except for Luffy, it took him a second to realize no one else was talking.

"Come on guys, we aren't going to get anywhere by shouting over each other! That's just what the shooter wants! Uh… Maybe…?" It suddenly occurred to Vivi that she was just in the dark as everyone else and her peacekeeping skills didn't amount for crap if she couldn't follow up with something to keep them all calm.

Robin at least could springboard off of that. "Vivi's right. Unfortunately, she's right on both counts. We aren't going to make any progress by shouting. But we also aren't going to make any progress because we have nowhere to start. All we can do is speculate."

"Oooooorr we could send out a search party!" Baby said, barely containing her eagerness. "I am more zhan happy to lead zhe charge! Zhere were no cars around zhe area, so we can assume he is traveling on foot! He could not have gotten far!"

Nami bit her thumbnail. "That's risky. If he's close and he's armed, he could pick us off while we're trying to find him…"

Baby bounced on her heels. "Perhaps my English is not so good. Let me rephrase zhis. I am going to track down zhis bastard before he harms any more of my friends. You are welcome to try and stop me, but you will have to cripple me. Or you could come wizh me and help."

"Damn. That's… hardball," Franky said.

Nami ran her fingers through her hair. Baby was right. Nami wasn't in charge and realistically, if asking politely didn't work, she really coudn't do anything to stop anyone from running out the gate right now. "Fine… Fine, do whatever you want… I obviously can't… stop you, you're stronger than me."

Baby smiled faintly. "I am not so foolhardy zhat I will rush out right now! I already tried zhat and he was long gone. Tomorrow morning. Zhat is when I will start zhe manhunt. When we are properly equipped!"

Nami was leaning back against the wall, rubbing the stress out of her eyes. "Sure, sure… Alright." She took a deep breath. "For now, wall patrols are still on, but… stay off the balcony. Just listen against the walls for anything coming and climb the ladders only if you need to silence a zombie."

The others agreed that was fair, but no one seemed too thrilled about it. There was even an obvious hesitation just to step outside of the safety of the house. Sanji dashed after Baby to volunteer his services in the manhunt, and by the end only Franky, Luffy, and Nami remained inside the house.

"Well that super coulda gone better. One guy, one bullet, and we're all thrown for a loop," Franky said, scratching his head. "Y'know, it's common knowledge Empress Hancock's got her fair share of enemies. But I woulda expected like… a super big army or somethin'. Not one scout returnin' fire. Something ain't right here…" He was talking to Luffy and Nami, but when he glanced over at them, he realized he was really talking to himself. "But uh! Maybe I'll think on it on my way home! I'll let you two know what I come up with!" He excused himself, leaving Nami and Luffy alone.

"Nami? You okay?" Luffy asked, reaching out to wrap his arm around her shoulders. "Hey, we're gonna catch this guy and kick his ass, right? So you don't have to worry about him!" he said, trying to cheer her up.

Nami looked up at him, shoulders slumped forward. "Hey, Luffy, you think I'm smart, right?"

"Yeah! Of course I do!"

She sighed. "At least someone does…"


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9: Ten days after arriving in Little Garden

"It is so… bright! And garish! And… bulky! And so… so… what is zhe word…"

"Ridiculous?"

"Extravagant!"

Sanji's eyes widened in surprise. He stared at Baby, fawning over the Frankystein, her eyes sparkling, her foot popped up, and her hands on her cheeks. It was love at first sight, and Sanji had to admit she looked really cute like that. She always looked cute, but this was especially cute.

"I had not seen it completed! Monsieur Franky certainly outdid himself! What a beautiful specimen of American engineering~!" she sang.

It was morning, the sun just barely peeking over the walls of the outpost. Baby wanted an early start on the manhunt and Sanji was the only one who both wanted to help her and was willing to get up that early. It was just the two of them standing in Sanji's driveway, and in a way he was pretty happy with that. He wasn't exactly _hoping_ for a romantic incursion out there while investigating a shooting, but the fact that it was just the two of them meant it was all the more likely it would occur.

Baby was glad for any company at all, but she was exceptionally glad that Sanji was the one coming with her. He was a potent combination of dependable, smart, and bilingual, which meant Baby could speak her first language. Plus, she thought, if there was some kind of situation, it was good to know she could rely on him to pull some kind of heroics. And there was the fact that ever since he came back from that jewelry store, he was putting a little bit more effort into his appearance, and Baby appreciated something nice to look at.

Because I know not all of you speak French, I'm going to translate their dialogue for you.

Baby circled the Jeep and tried the door handles. Of course they didn't open and she stepped back, tilting her head. "How… How do you get in?"

"Ah, you have to go through the back," Sanji said. He demonstrated by climbing up over the backseat, avoiding the spikes jutting out. He turned around and extended a hand to help her up.

"Oh my, what a gentleman~" she said, putting one hand to her chest and taking his with the other. He felt his face heat up and he couldn't tell if she was actually swooning or if she was just playing. It was a little bit of both.

Their graceful display was immediately ruined as the two of them then had to awkwardly climb over the center console to sit in the front and passenger seats. Sanji sat behind the wheel, and Baby adjusted herself, looking back over her shoulder to judge the rest of the Jeep.

"Not very convenient, is it?" she said once she was buckled up.

Sanji shrugged. "Well, Franky's theory is that if we're on the run and we all climb into the thing, it doesn't matter that it takes some time to get situated, because there's no way a zombie could climb up like that."

Baby nodded, her lips pulled into a thin smile. "That's what he says, hm? I think he welded the doors shut first, and _then_ realized he'd need to justify how difficult he made things~" she said with a giggle.

There was still a patrol duo out, even at this time in the morning. Today it was Luffy and Nami, walking the interior of the walls and staying clear of the balcony. Because of Luffy's sprained ankle, he wasn't making the loop around the outpost as much as Nami, and spent a lot of the time complaining about his injury in a folding lawn chair in front of the gate's button.

However, he wasn't complaining when Sanji and Baby drove up, because Nami was curled up in his lap with a jacket draped over the both of them like a makeshift blanket. His eyes were closed, but really he could have just been resting. Sanji leaned out the window and called out to him, "Hey, Luffy! Open up for us?"

The way he jolted up indicated that, no, he had indeed passed out. He shook his head and regained his bearings, and glanced over at the car. "Whawazat…?"

"The gate, buddy. Can you open up?" Sanji asked again.

He blinked a few times and it dawned on him what Sanji meant. "Oh, okay!" He shook Nami as gently as he could.

She gasped loudly and stammered, sitting upright, blinking rapidly, and looking around in a daze. "Whuh- I wasn't- I wasn't asleep!" she said. "Just sitting down for a sec!" She climbed out of her seat/Luffy's lap and stretched her back. It took her a second to notice the Frankystein in front of her. "I-I wasn't- I didn't fall asleep on guard duty! Just resting!"

She stumbled around the chair and slapped her hand on the opener. She waved them past with a barely contained yawn. "Be safe out there!" She rolled her shoulders to straighten herself out. "Don't stay out too long!"

When they were clear of the gate, Nami shut it and turned around to look at Luffy. He wasn't saying anything, just staring at her with his dumb blank expression. She still felt like she was being judged. "I wasn't asleep. I was comfortable, but I was _not_ asleep."

"Are you comin' back here?"

She crossed her arms. "N-no, we should make another sweep. Come on." She walked over to help him stand up and as she walked with him around the wall, she again insisted, "I didn't fall asleep! _You_ fell asleep!"

He didn't say anything.

Sanji and Baby arrived back at the shooter's house without incident, although both of them were sort of anticipating something happening. It was exactly as Baby had left it yesterday, the door still idly swinging open. They climbed out of the Frankystein and walked into the house, peeking around every corner to make sure there was no one waiting for them. Baby led Sanji up to the second floor, to the room the shot came from.

It was a boy's bedroom, everything in it covered in a fine layer of dust. The objects strewn around the room, books, video games, clothes, had all been untouched for years. The bedspread was the only thing that had been moved. The bed was underneath the window the shot came from, which meant the shooter pretty much only came here to spy on the outpost and do little else.

They gave the rest of the house a quick runthrough and determined there was no way anyone was still here. They stood in the family room on the first floor and Sanji threw his hands up. "House is empty."

"He must've run through the backyard…" Baby said. They both glanced at the doorwall leading to the backyard, and it became pretty clear Baby was right. The glass door had been left open, but the screen door was closed. Apparently, in his haste, the shooter saved time by plowing through the screen instead of opening it. They regarded the cartoon hole and stepped through it, giving a quick look around the backyard. It was predictably devoid of people.

There were chain fences on either side of the house, separating it from the neighbors. There was also a tall wooden privacy fence along the back, which Sanji made a note of. "Alright, so we know we have a guy willing to run through a screen rather than open it. So I'm betting he's also the kind of guy to just run straight in the opposite direction of trouble… So he probably…" he took a running leap and scaled the fence, peering over into the other backyard. "Hopped the fence! Aw…"

"What do you see?" Baby called out.

"Uhh… Nnnnothing." Sanji responded.

Baby similarly hopped up onto the fence next to him and scanned the area herself. "Tch!" she tutted. She lowered herself a little, and then pulled herself up completely, allowing her to balance on the top of the fence. She stood up straight, held her arms up, and leapt off, performing a perfect front flip and landing on her feet. "I was almost hoping we'd find him clutching a broken leg or something…"

Sanji stared in awe for a second, and followed after her. All he did was swing his leg over and drop down onto the grass. Both of them wandered around the backyard idly, looking for any sign of the shooter. "So, that was… impressive, by the way," he said to her.

She smiled at hm. "Seven years in gymnastics! I ought to be good with all the money my family sank into it. Oh!" Something caught her attention and she pointed it out. "The gate's open! He must've come through here after all!"

There was a chain link gate separating the front and backyard, swinging open. Like someone had rushed through in a hurry. Baby skipped over to investigate, hugging the house's wall as she passed through the gate. She peered around the corner, looking out into the front yard and the street, and beckoned Sanji over.

When he jogged over to her, she playfully bumped him with her hip. "You were right! Take a look."

Out in the middle of the road was a freshly killed zombie, cooking in the sunlight. They approached it cautiously, since corpses had a habit of only pretending to be dead sometimes. It had a knife wound in its head, though, and the blood leaking out was still damp. Unless it was some kind of absurd level of coincidence, their shooter had run through here. There was also a single bloody footprint on the pavement. It wasn't a complete, perfect one, but there was enough there to point them towards the house across the street.

"And Nami thought we wouldn't find anything! Oh, I cannot _wait_ to rub this in her face~" Baby sang. "After I rub the heel of my shoe all over this man's face, of course."

Sanji looked away from her and thought he was just saying his next thought in his head, but some signals got crossed and what came out of his mouth was "I wouldn't say being stepped on by you is that bad a thing…" and he only realized his own body's betrayal when it was too late. He froze in abject horror, praying only that Baby didn't hear him say it in English. He was afraid to turn and face her, instead choosing to stare straight ahead at the house that would be their next destination.

He didn't see Baby slowly circling around him until she entered his field of vision. Her eyes were wide, but not out of terror. Because the smile stretching from ear to ear clearly meant she was more pleasantly surprised by Sanji's comment than offended. "Would you care to repeat that?" she asked politely. She looked borderline manic.

Sanji tried to force a word out. Any word. Anything at all. But all he could muster was a ragged squeak. Baby stepped forward, closing the gap between them and leaning inches away from his face. "Because if that's what you want, I wouldn't mind arranging something… I do have some _exceptionally_ nice pairs of heels… And a few outfits that would suit them. If you want. I'm open to suggestions."

She let him stew for a while, savoring his expression as he struggled between being terrified and being aroused. She didn't move, didn't blink as his face got hotter and redder, and right before he reached his breaking point, she playfully shoved him away. "I'm teasing you!" she squealed, bursting into laughter. "I've never seen a man blush so hard! You're a tomato!" She was howling with laughter, a little higher and louder than one would expect…

Sanji finally managed to force himself to laugh, but it was uneasy and a little fearful. It dawned on him that Baby might be a little unhinged. Not in the cute "oh my family is insane around the holidays!" way, but in the way where he wouldn't be surprised if she had served time in jail.

She was still laughing at him as they approached the house the footprint marked for them. Not even quiet tittering as she tried to calm herself down. This was bordering on cackling as she looked over at him. He wondered what she was thinking about, but was too afraid to ask.

He didn't manage to pull her out of her laughing fits until they were in the driveway. They were going to head straight for the backyard, but Sanji noticed the front door was ajar and pointed it out.

It snapped her out of her busy thoughts of high heels and cigarettes, and she looked over at the front porch. They couldn't see it from the street, but closer like this, it was easy to see the door was cracked open just a bit.

They approached with caution. Unlike the first house and the backyards, there was a much more real chance their target was here, and they didn't want to run the risk of scaring him into attacking them. Or worse, scaring him into running off and making them chase him. At the front porch, Sanji pushed the front door open slowly and they stepped inside as silently as they could manage.

The house's layout was such that the dining room was visible from the entrance, down a short hallway. On the left was a staircase leading upstairs, and along that wall was a door to the basement. The doorwall to the backyard was also visible in the dining room, and that was wide open. Still, no guarantee that he wasn't still here.

Baby gave the front door behind them a gentle push to ease it back to its original position. Unfortunately, the draft from the open doorwall caught it and it slammed shut. They both groaned at the noise it made. "Well, he knows we're here now…" Baby huffed.

There was a muffled clattering, like something falling over, coming from the basement. Baby and Sanji glanced at each other, and then at the door in the hallway. They paced their way to the door and Sanji cracked it open to peer inside. It was dark, the morning sun just barely shining through the windows. Even in the low light, they could see the basement was hardly finished, in contrast to the rest of the well-furnished house. The stairs weren't carpeted and the duo had to step carefully, as each step groaned underneath their weight.

Baby took the lead, as she was the only one who brought a flashlight. She had it in one hand, and a knife in the other, held out in front of her like every action hero in every action movie where they're looking for the bad guy in a dark warehouse or something. She slowly swept the beam across the basement. The walls and floor were concrete, with mismatched rugs placed around instead of a real carpet. No frills, no decorations, just boxes on roller shelves set against the walls.

If you were to look at the basement from an aerial view, you would see that the staircase was almost in the center of the basement, just shifted slightly toward one wall. If you were to walk down the stairs, you'd only have a few steps before you ran straight into a wall. If you were smart, you would turn before hitting the wall and see that the basement opened up far more behind the staircase.

Still in the staircase's landing, Baby sang out "Come out, come out, wherever you are…" which is a phrase that has never worked ever. When, predictably, no one revealed themselves, they realized they would have to investigate. Baby went left, circling slowly around the staircase. Sanji went right, to look closer at the rolling shelves. There was just enough space between them and the wall that a person could hide behind one, so he went one by one, squinting in the low light.

Baby didn't find much along the back wall. There was a washer and dryer, and a washtub against the wall. A few more shelves and stacks of boxes, but nothing else noteworthy. She briefly considered, then dismissed the idea that someone could potentially hide in the dryer. It was a top loader, after all… She turned around and the light passed by a door leading to a storage closet underneath the staircase.

Now that was promising. Far more likely someone could hide in there than anywhere else. She skulked toward the door, tucking her flashlight away in her maid apron, but keeping her knife out. She silently gripped the doorknob and turned it slowly. The door swung open as soon as she did so, sending her stumbling backwards. She barely had time to yelp out before the shambling mass that was previously leaning against the door fell forward, trying to drag her down. The knife slipped from her hand and she fell backwards, trying and failing to catch herself with her hands. She hit the ground hard and quickly had to bring her hands up to shield herself, catching the zombie in the neck to keep it away from her delicious flesh. She held it back with both hands, but it was mostly dead weight against her, lurching closer and snapping its rotting teeth mindlessly.

"SANJI!" she shrieked out. He was already rushing towards her, having heard her fall over. She used all her strength to shove the creature off of her and rolled out of the way, just in time for Sanji to bring his foot back and punt the zombie in the skull. Its head tore free from its neck and it sailed through the air, splattering against the washer like the most vile field goal in history.

Baby lifted her head up to make sure the thing was dead for real, and when she confirmed it was, she collapsed back down with a sigh of relief. "Oh, that was too close… Thank you, Sanji…" She felt something strange in her right hand and flexed it curiously. It was warm and sticky, and when she curled her fingers, it sent waves of pain through her arm. She forced herself to sit up and lifted her hand to her face. It was bright red with blood, pouring from the side of her hand, past her wrist, and running to her forearm. There was a split in her skin, a gash that started on the back of her hand underneath her pinkie, and extended to the edge of her palm.

Sanji whirled around when he heard her gasp in fear. He saw her sitting up, staring at her hand, and knelt in front of her, "What!? What is it!?"

She held out her hand for him to see. "I-It's a bite! That… That _bastard_ got me!"


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Baby scanned the ground and reached for the knife that had slipped from her hand earlier. "I-I have to cut off my hand, Sanji, help me!" She gripped the knife with her good hand and brought it to the wrist of her bleeding hand.

As she brought the knife up, something caught Sanji's eye and he lunged forward. "Whoa, whoa, wait-!" he cried out, grabbing both of her wrists and forcing them apart. "Baby, Baby, hold on, calm down-!"

She shook her head frantically, trying to pull free of his grip. "No, I know what I'm doing! I've seen this dozens of times, please! If we don't act fast, then the infection will spread!"

Sanji stammered and held onto her wrists tighter, fighting against her. "I know that! But you might bleed out anyway! Let's think before we do something crazy!"

Her entire body went tense, her grip around the knife tightening to white-knuckle, and her injured hand balling into a fist. Blood was dripping onto the concrete floor now. But she stopped trying to fight him, instead choosing to look up at him for a solution with tears stinging her eyes.

"Let me just look at the wound first," he said, pulling her injured hand toward him. He wiped the blood off with his shirt sleeve and studied her injury. The cut looked too clean to belong to a zombie bite. It wasn't like a chunk of skin torn out, it looked more like… "I was hoping it was that…"

He reached for her other wrist and held up her hand so she could see. "Yeah… Baby, look. The knife's covered in blood too. I don't… I don't think you were bitten. I think you cut yourself when you fell."

She blinked and looked back and forth between her hands. The knife's blade was stained red, even though she hadn't actually used it to kill anything today. Sanji was smiling awkwardly at her, trying to reassure her that he was right. It was possible that she just cut herself... But it was also possible she cut herself on the zombie's teeth when she brought her hands up to defend herself. "Are you sure?"

He nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I think so. It… That's what it looks like..." He sounded more like he was trying to be convincing than he was actually convinced he was right.

She wanted to believe him. She didn't want to lose a hand and become a burden on the others. She was a fighter, a weapons expert. That was her role in Hancock's empire and it was a role she fulfilled with pride. Without a hand, she couldn't shoot, couldn't fight, couldn't do the thing she was best at. She shivered at the thought. She would be _useless_.

Sanji broke up her thoughts again. "W-we can… We can still cut it off if you want to be sure, but I'd really rather not mutilate you like that," he said with another awkward chuckle.

She was quiet for a while, staring at her injured hand. She looked over the wound, watched more blood pour from it and swallowed hard. "No… No, let's not do that. But…" her eyes moved up to meet his. "Could you stay here with me? I want to wait out the two hours… Just to be sure…"

Sanji's heart was in his throat. He desperately missed being nervous around Baby because her sexiness was borderline intimidating, not because her eyes were cloudy with tears and her breathing was unsteady with fear. "O-Of course, Baby…"

He led her up the stairs because, if the worst happened, she didn't want to die in a dark basement. They found a bathroom, so Baby could hold a towel against her hand while Sanji tore the house apart to find a first aid kit. As loathe as he was to leave her alone for any extended period of time. He managed to find a few rolls of gauze in a linen closet and rushed back to her. Neither of them really knew a whole lot about first aid, so he just cleaned it as best he could and wrapped her hand in enough gauze that they felt it looked good enough.

Once they were more or less satisfied with that, it was time to play the waiting game. They both collapsed on a couch in the living room. The living room was decorated with the kind of furniture that looked like it was more for decoration than serving any practical purpose. But fuck that, is what they both thought.

Waiting is a terrible experience. It's made even worse when you're waiting for something bad to happen. It's made even _worse_ when you're waiting for something bad that could potentially happen. And it's made _even worse_ when you have nothing to do but wait. Sanji sat on one end of the couch, his arm on the armrest, staring up at the white ceiling. Baby had her feet up, sitting sideways and leaning back against his arm. Her bandaged hand was resting on the top of the couch. She knew to keep wounds elevated at least.

Sanji broke the silence by asking "So how do you feel…?" And when I say he broke the silence, I mean it was pure silence. The absence of any sound made it impossible to keep track of how long they had actually been sitting there. No ticking clock on the walls, and neither of them wore watches. It felt like it had been a half hour, but had really been more like ten minutes.

Baby fidgeted where she was sitting. "My heart's racing and my head hurts. But I don't know if it's infection or if it's nerves…"

"Well," Sanji said, surreptitiously shifting so she was leaning more against his chest than his arm. "You don't look sick… And you're taking all of this pretty calmly."

Baby responded to this by screaming.

"IT'S NOT FAIR! I HATE THIS! I HATE UNCERTAINTY! IT'S ALL BULLSHIT! I WANT THINGS TO BE SIMPLE! A man shoots at us and we kill him! That's simple! We shouldn't have to track him like a dog! We should be able to deal justice NOW! But no, he has to sneak away and leave us with nothing to go on!" She looked at her hand and clenched it into a fist. "And this! This, this-! Am I going to die or not?! I DON'T KNOW AND I HATE IT!" She wiped the tears from her eyes, slumping back against Sanji. "I would rather the thing have torn my throat out! Then I would at least fucking KNOW!"

Sanji tried to say something, but he really had no words to console her at all. She was right on all accounts. She exhaled sharply. "If I do start to turn, you have to promise you'll kill me before it's too late."

He finally found his voice. "Wh-what?! No, I couldn't-! Baby, that's-..."

"You have to! I am not letting myself turn into one of those things. That would be the most bullshit to happen to me! I am not going to end up the same way my family did! They deserved to become those monsters! Not me!"

"Family…? Wh-what was that about your family?" Sanji asked.

Baby suddenly became very quiet. "Nothing. They got what we deserved. Sanji, please promise me you'll do the right thing."

Sanji ran his fingers through his hair. "I-I-... God… I promise. I'll do it before it's too late, but… Shit, I really hope it doesn't come to that. I don't… want to lose you."

Baby burst out into laughter. That cackling, borderline psychotic laughter similar to earlier in the day. "Lose me! Lose me?! Sanji, dear, you don't _have_ me!"

Sanji's heart had previously been in his throat, but now it dropped right fucking quick into his stomach. He stammered to roll that back. "N-no, wait, I mean-! I didn't mean to _imply_ -"

Baby interrupted him. "Speaking of uncertainty, it's also frustrating that for someone as so good at flirting as you, you can't make it clear what you actually want. It's disappointing."

"D-disappointing?!"

"I've been waiting patiently for you to make a move, to take a shot! But it hasn't happened! We could have had _several_ alcohol-fueled makeout sessions by now!"

Sanji's brain sputtered to a halt and he attempted to make sense of what she was saying. "... Wait… Wait, wait, I wasn't making a move because I thought you weren't interested in me like that!"

For the first time in this conversation, Baby actually turned around. She shifted so she was sitting shoulder to shoulder next to him, her legs tucked up underneath her, so she could look him in the eye. "No… That's not right. You were more interested in shallow flirting, so I didn't feel the need to pursue _you_."

"Are you… Joking?! Why wouldn't I be interested in a smoking hot French maid with the nicest hair I've ever seen and the _best_ legs on anyone I've ever met?! Not interested. I've never met anyone with so much _passion_! You're everything! Crazy hot and caring and dangerous! Of course I wanted to get with you!"

"Oh and you're one to talk! Mr. Gorgeous Chef Man with all his heroics. So damn charming all the time, it never turns off! Like a damn swashbuckler! And really, my hair?! What about _your_ hair?! Blonde, shaggy, I just want to run my fingers through it!"

Sanji stared at her and processed all of this. "Well! That's where we are, then!"

"That's how it is!" she said back to him. They both sat there, eyes locked, being all indignant at each other for no good reason. And then both of them leaned in at the same time, eyes closing and lips pursing. However, Baby pulled a shocking swerve at the last second and turned away, yelping "Wait, wait, no!"

"Gaaaaahhhh! Why not?!" Sanji groaned.

"Because it feels wrong! The mood is off, I don't want to make out _now_! The spectre of death may be looming overhead."

He had almost forgotten what spurred this on. He managed to compose himself and said "That's fair…" through gritted teeth. Then, much more softly, he asked "So how do you feel? Feverish at all…?"

"I don't think so… I'm not really sure." She put a hand to her forehead, waited for a second, and then frowned. "I don't know what I'm feeling for."

Sanji hesitated, and then placed his hand on her forehead too. She looked at him for a verdict and he shrugged. "I don't… really know what I'm supposed to be looking for either. But I think by now you'd be… sweating or in pain or something. Y-You know. Dying…"

She was feeling more or less okay, but the thought of getting back to the outpost and then turning in front of all her friends flashed through her brain. "Let's give it a little longer, just to be safe."

"Smoke?" he asked, holding his pack of cigarettes in front of her face. She gladly accepted the offer and leaned in when he held the lighter in front of her.

She took a long drag and watched the twin trails of smoke curl upward to the ceiling. "Thank you, by the way," she said. "For sitting here with me. I'm afraid I… may have gotten us both worked up for nothing, but… I appreciate it anyway."

His arm found its way around her shoulders so she could lean against him again. "Of course," he said with all that charm he carried around. "Who wouldn't?"

She scowled. "You'd be surprised," she said with all the bitterness of pure black industrial grade coffee.

He thought about it for a second. "You know, I actually don't think I would. Your family isn't the only one that got what they deserved."

Baby turned to him, cigarette dangling from her lips. "Oh? Would you like to go on?" she asked in a combination of slyly and innocently.

He just laughed. "Maybe some other time. It's not going to affect us, so I'm not in any hurry to talk about my past. I'll save it for when we really get to know each other."

Baby sat up, deliberately pulling away from him. "And that's the ambiguous bullshit that I hate."

With each passing moment, it became more and more clear that Baby was in no danger of turning. They waited until Sanji's pack of smokes was depleted, and when they extinguished the last two butts by pressing them into the couch, they stood up.

Both of them let out a breath, smiling at each other. "You're alright," he said.

"I'm alright," she repeated back.

They stood there for a while, uncomfortably close, looking into each other's eyes. Now this normally would be the part where the music swelled and they both leaned in slowly and kissed in this perfect, relieved way.

But nah, instead it was more like they just grabbed each other by the cheeks and their lips smashed into each other like wrecking balls. It was frantic, desperate kissing, and it only increased when Baby's leg hooked around Sanji's waist and his hands traveled down her back to grab her butt under her skirt.

Eventually Baby's eyes shot open and she pulled away. "Oh SHIT! The shooter! I almost forgot!"

She tried tugging away from Sanji and he was hesitant to let her go. "Shooter?! S-seriously!? Now!?"

"Oh we can pick this up later, we've wasted enough time. Let's get back on the trail! We know he went out the back, right?" She unhooked her leg and took a moment to study him. He had smeared red lipstick around his lips, but there was no time to try and wipe it off, so she didn't bother saying anything. She was already on her way to the doorwall with Sanji right behind her.

"Wait, we're just gonna stop like that?! And hey, don't you wanna go back and get that hand looked at?! Just because it's not infected doesn't mean it can't be… uh… infected!"

She was already in the backyard by that point, and something had caught her attention.

It's important at this point to mention that the house they were occupying was on a street corner. They could see the road to their left when they hit the backyard. It's worth mentioning because this is the only way they could see the car driving away from the direction of the outpost. Sanji stood next to her as they watched it go, cruising at a leisurely pace. It allowed Sanji to see who was sitting in the passenger seat.

"Visitors? Did we have guests…? Oh! Do you think they're connected to the shooting?!" Baby gasped. She turned to Sanji, but he was already storming back inside the house.

"Come on! We gotta get back home!" he yelled to her, beckoning her to follow him.

The car was out of sight and she looked back to where it had been seconds ago. "What?! But the trail-! We should-!" But he was already gone as well. She had no choice but to chase after him as he retraced their steps in a sprint. "Sanji! Do you know who that was or something?!"

He flung open the front door of the house, storming across the street, leaping over the zombie corpse that had been cooking there. "Yeah, you could say that! Mother _fucker_ , what the hell is he doing here?!" He was back in the backyard with the privacy fence and he more or less ran straight up it, rather than climb. When he swung over to the other side, he stayed up on it, so he could reach down and grab Baby's hand to help her up.

Once they were both over, he scrambled for the Frankystein, practically diving over the back of it to crawl into the front seat. Baby climbed in after him and once she had dropped down in her seat, she looked at him. "Who is that man?! Do you think he hurt the others?!"

He threw the car into reverse and tore out of the driveway. "I don't know, and that's what I'm afraid of!"

They were both relieved to find the gate and the walls still intact. Sanji beeped the horn and was surprised at how quickly Coby and Perona popped their heads over. He didn't even have to say anything before Perona vanished and the gate slid open. When they drove past the walls and into the cul-de-sac, they could see most of the others standing around in various states of unease.

None of them looking more uneasy than Luffy and Nami, standing in the center of the road. Sanji parked the Frankystein in front of them and both he and Baby climbed out.

"What the hell happened? Were those guys here?!" Sanji asked as he approached the younger duo.

Nami rubbed her eyes. They both looked absolutely exhausted. Luffy's shoulders were slumped forward and Nami had dark bags underneath her eyes. "You saw them? Yeah they just left."

Luffy blinked at Baby. "Hey, what happened to your hand?!" He pointed at her injury.

"Zhis? Zhis is nozhing, zhose people are more important! Who were zhey? What did zhey want?!"

Nami looked between the two of them, wide-eyed and fidgeting, completely opposite of her and Luffy's current attitude. "The hell's got the two of you so jumpy?"

Before Sanji could open his mouth, Baby explained with just a hint of bitterness, "Sanji knows who zhose people are, but he will not tell me anyzhing else! All I know is he zhinks zhey are dangerous!"

Nami shook her head. "What? Nooo that's impossible. First off, Sanji would never hang out with scumbags like that guy. And second, he lived with us for years, and when he came to my town, he was alone. Anyone he knows, I would know too."

"Look, it's complicated," Sanji said, "And I'll explain all of it, but first I really need to know what they were doing here!" He glanced over at Baby. "And uh… while we're at it, we should probably get her hand cleaned up."

"Yeah! What happened?! Did you two get in a fight with someone?!" Luffy asked.

Baby waved it off dismissively. "It is nozhing! I zhought I had been bitten, but really I just cut myself. We should focus on zhese mystery men!"

Luffy didn't want to drop it, though. "How do you know…" he said after a moment, "That you _weren't_ bitten, and it just turns out you're immune, like Robin is?"

Baby's mouth hung open. "I… I had not considered zhat…"

Nami put her hand on Luffy's shoulder and gave him a gentle shake. "Sweetie, that would be a really cool thing to talk about later, but can we do one thing at a time? I've been awake for like… 28 hours now and I don't have the brainpower to multitask. In fact, let's kill two birds with one stone." She gestured for everyone to follow her as she headed to Law's house. "I need to go see Law anyway, so we can talk there. Zoro's still recovering and I need to tell him that we know who fucking shot him."


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11: A little over two hours prior to the end of Chapter 10

Luffy and Nami didn't very briefly sort of drift to sleep on guard duty because they were lazy or anything. Nami had been unable to sleep, plagued with worry about the shooter and the outpost's safety. Usually her mom could handle things like this. She knew what to do when trouble reared its ugly head. She could come up with a plan.

Now it was Nami's turn and she was coming up with jack shit. So she laid awake, tossing and turning, knowing that the 4:00-8:00 patrol shift was drawing ever nearer. And because she was so damn restless, she was keeping her boyfriend awake too.

It was for this reason that, when their shift was over, not too long after Sanji and Baby had left, that they looked at Coby and Perona like a dying man in a desert looks at a pitcher of ice water. Perona took one look at them and scoffed. "Wow, you two look like shit."

Luffy squinted at her, which was his attempt at a glare. Nami matched his expression and whispered "Thank you for that."

"I'm sure what Perona means is you two look exhausted and must be relieved to see us," Coby said from behind her.

Perona nodded in agreement. "Yeah. Like I said, you two look like shit."

Luffy made some attempt at lunging at Perona, but it was really more like he sort of fell forward at her with his arms half-raised. Nami managed to hold him back. "No, Luffy. It's not worth it. Not this time."

"Uuuuuggghhh… Fiiiiiiiine… Can we just go to bed for real this time?" Luffy said, wobbling back and forth. The two of them shuffled off, not unlike actual zombies, leaving the pink duo to their work.

They started their first walk around the walls, Perona in the lead and Coby hanging back so he could listen closer to the walls. It felt oddly nostalgic considering his previous duty at the apartment complex. "Y'know…" he said in Persona's general direction. "You could stand to be a little nicer. We're all on edge here and that kind of talk isn't helping."

Perona whirled around, looking offended. Her dress and braids twirled with her. "What?! Excuse me, I _was_ being nice! It's called expressing concern? I know those two are usually like, the cutest couple, so I was informing them that I noticed how terrible they looked! I was worried about their well-being!"

Coby raised his eyebrow. "But you said they looked like shit…"

"Because they did! I call it like I see it, that's how I roll! And I can tell you aren't looking too hot either. What's up?"

Perona, Coby noted, had a very odd way of showing concern. But she wasn't entirely wrong, he was having some problems as a result of the shooting. He wasn't sure if she was the right person to tell them to, but maybe her brutal honesty was just what he needed.

"It's Vivi-" he started to say, before Perona grabbed him by the shoulders and leaned in close.

"YOU TWO ARE GETTING A DIVORCE!" she shrieked. Her eyes were wide, well, wider than usual, and he couldn't tell if her expression was denoting concern or if it was more akin to excitement about the prospect of marital strife.

He leaned away from her as much as he could. "Wh-what?! No! What?!"

She let out a sigh of relief. "Oh thank God, that would be awful…" Well, that answered that. "So, what is it?"

As they started their patrol once again, Coby shoved his hands in his pockets. "It's all of this, what else would it be? I mean, she was there when Zoro got shot, so she's… pretty freaked out. You know, Vivi and I have… eh… Well, I'll admit, we've both been pretty sheltered since Zombie Day. We used to live in an apartment building with walls like this. The guy who ran it was a jerk, but it was rock solid. And then living in Funkytown, we were still kept well far away from trouble. But now we come here and… We can't even make it two weeks without people getting injured and attacked… We don't think we're really cut out for this."

Perona was skipping ahead of him, running her fingers along the wall. "So basically, you're a big wimpy wimp and you two wanna just run and abandon your friends because it's a little scary around here!"

Brutal honesty.

"Well, I mean when you put it like that, it sounds terrible…" Coby muttered weakly.

"Welcome to the real world!" she shouted, ignoring him. She had her arms outstretched, a grand gesture to the shithole of a planet they lived on. "You got lucky being all pampered and tucked in, but now you're out and you want back in your safe little crib! You think I want to be here? Heck no! I'd way rather be in my castle with my handsome servants at my beck and call! I want to be a princess! But instead I'm here, because that's _reality_."

Coby stared at the back of her head. "Wait… Hold on, are you… actually royalty..?"

Perona huffed, stomping her foot. "No! But I _deserve_ to be! That's the point!" she turned around and stomped up to him, poking him in the chest. "None of us get to be spoiled anymore! It's called being an adult? Hello? Nothing ever works out for adults!"

"Well… Technically, Vivi and I are still teenager-"

"Shut up shut up shut up! Don't remind me! Ugh, I hate that I'm not the youngest here… BUT THERE, SEE? That's exactly what I mean! I don't even get _that_!"

Coby looked from her, to the ground, and then back to her. "You know, you're… not really selling me on this…"

"Well, see, the upside is…" she actually had to think. Encouraging people was harder than she thought, it was more or less unfamiliar to her. "We're all… suffering together! So when things are shitty, you have someone to complain to! What, would you rather suffer alone? I mean, if you run back home, you'll be safe, but you'll be bored without anyone cool and super cute like me to hang out with." She glared at him, making sure he really took in what she was saying. "Look, see, if you bail on us, then you can kiss our friendship goodbye. And you really don't want to lose me as a friend."

"I'll… I'll tell Vivi you said that. But thanks, that… sort of kinda helps." He didn't really know what Perona meant about the friendship thing. This was the first real one on one conversation they'd ever had. But he figured someone as… aggressive as Perona probably treasured positive interaction because they had so little of it. So he was willing to meet her halfway. "You know, the two of us should hang out more."

She didn't immediately respond to that and was actually quiet. Before either of them could fill the silence, a car horn blared from the gate. Confused, because everyone was well familiar with the Frankystein's _La Cucaracha_ horn, they jogged back to the entrance and scrambled up to the balcony. They peeked over the wall and then immediately ducked back down out of sight.

The car parked in front of the gate was not familiar to either of them. It was an old Cadillac from the 60's or 70's. Neither of them were car people, so they didn't know for sure, but that was what felt right.

"Who is that?!" Coby whispered.

"I have no idea! He's not one of ours!" Perona whispered back.

"Well, what do we do?! Do we let him in?!"

They both jumped when the horn blared again and they risked another peek. Peering over the edge, just enough to see the driver and passenger getting impatient. They honked the horn again and finally the passenger stepped out.

The pink duo dropped back down out sight, which means they didn't get a look at whoever it was. But they sure as hell heard him. "Well God dang, you two!" He had a thick southern accent and a voice like gravel. "Now come on, we're out here honkin' and shoutin' and attractin' all manner of ghoul out here! You leave us out here any longer and the biters are gonna find us! Now I know someone's up there, I saw your little heads pokin' up! You gonna show us some hospitality or what?"

"What do we do here?!" Coby whispered.

Perona thought for a moment and then yelled out, "Tell us who you are first!"

"Well now see that there's a start!" the man called back. "My name, young lady, is Don Krieg! And with me is my darling assistant Monet! Monet, say hi to the children up there."

A woman's voice, likely the driver, called up with a bored "Hellooooo…"

"Aw she's a real peach," Krieg said with a level of pride. "Now I have come here today to deal with some… Rather serious business, you see. It seems that one of my men may have gotten into an… Altercation with one of your men, and, well, as a result we have something of a situation on our hands."

Coby tensed up, breaking out into a cold sweat. Perona looked confused. "What did he just say?"

"One of his guys shot Zoro!" Coby whisper-shouted.

"Oh! OH!" and Perona quickly popped up with her pistol drawn, hastily aiming it right at Krieg. "YOU SON OF A BITCH!"

Krieg, a man clad in a pinstripe suit, each finger adorned with gold rings, held up his hands in surrender. "Ah now I say, young missy, there is no need for hostilities! Now, I have come here to make amends, you see! Ain't no reason to go pointin' firearms! Now you put down that there pistol and perhaps we can settle this matter like civilized individuals."

Perona kept the gun on him, but glanced down at Coby. "What the hell is he saying?!"

"I think he wants to talk to someone in charge."

"Well why didn't he say that?!"

"I don't know!"

Krieg, growing impatient, called back up to them. "Now, I'll go ahead and make this a little smoother. See, I know some of the people you have up in there. I know you've got a blonde fella, a black haired fella, a blue haired fella, and a redhead young lady. See, one of my men had a… chance encounter with them in a little town nearby and, well, that's how we learned y'all was out here. If you could go and fetch one of them, well, that'd be lovely."

Perona just stared blankly, and Coby recognized the pattern. "He wants to talk to Franky, or Luffy, or Nami."

"How come you can understand him but I can't? His accent is ridiculous!" She waited for him to do something and then nudged him with her foot. "Well!? Go get 'em!"

Coby sputtered out a protest, but he eventually scurried down the ladder. Perona watched him go and then yelled back to Krieg, "Alright, we're getting them!"

"Now that's more like it! I don't suppose you would be willing to let us wait within the confines of your walls? Feelin' mighty exposed out here!"

"No, you just stay put!"

Krieg smiled, but it felt forced. "With all due respect, little missy, you are really testin' the limits of my patience…"

Coby, meanwhile, had explained the situation to Franky. He was standing in the doorway of his house, wearing a bathrobe and listening intently. He scratched his chins when Coby finished. "Well… That's super convenient. I guess we better see what he wants."

"But what if they're here to attack us or something?!"

"You said there's two of 'em, right? Pretty sure _all of us_ can take out two guys. Go wake up Luffy and Nami, I'll go let the guy in." Franky saw no reason to change out of his bathrobe as he ambled toward the gate. Leaving Coby with the unfortunate task of disturbing the slumber of two of his friends.

There was no response when he knocked on the door, so he hesitantly tried the handle. To his surprise, the door opened and he tiptoed in. The two of them were sprawled on the couch in a tangled mess of limbs and he immediately regretted whispering "H-hey, guys?"

"Coby, the outpost better be on fire. It better be engulfed in flame and we have moments to live, because that is the only reason I can think of that you would even risk waking us up," Nami said without moving from her spot.

"Well, it's not on fire, but uh… The boss of the guy who shot Zoro is here and he wants to talk to you."

Luffy and Nami both lifted their heads and then looked at each other. "... Dammit, that's a pretty good reason…" Luffy groaned.

By the time they dragged themselves outside again, the Cadillac was in the center of the cul-de-sac and Krieg was standing next to it, arms crossed and smiling. Making a big show of looking around and taking it all in. "Well, I do say! This is a _beautiful_ slice of heaven y'all have carved out for yourselves!" he said. He was also delighted at all the suspicious glares he was getting from the others.

Bonney, Robin, and Vivi had all come out, drawn by the commotion, and were glaring from their respective front porches. Even Vivi looked pissed, but her shaking hands meant she was also pretty nervous as well. Perona still had her pistol on him from the balcony, and Franky had a revolver aimed at him too, standing in front of the gate opener. Coby quickly made himself scarce, choosing to run back to his guard duties, mostly so he wouldn't have to deal with any of this directly.

Luffy took one look at the guy, smug shit-eating grin and all, and no one bothered to stop him when he marched forward, pulled his fist back, and decked the guy square in the chin. Krieg's head jerked back and he staggered backwards. Everyone braced themselves for him to retaliate, but instead he grabbed his chin with one hand, grinned, and started laughing again. "Well, I can't rightly say I didn't have that comin' on account of what I'm here to talk with y'all about! But let's get one thing straight. That is the only time I will let you hit me, boy. You understand me?"

Luffy glared at him. "I've never understood anything ever in my life!" and started to pull back for another punch, specifically to prove Krieg wrong, when Nami ordered him to stop.

She walked to them to join the conversation and pulled Luffy behind her. "I'm Nami. That's Luffy. I'd apologize for his actions, but I don't really feel that bad. So you're the guy that shot our guy?"

Krieg adjusted his suitcoat. "No, but he works underneath me. I'm Don Krieg, by the way, and well, I actually came here to apologize on his behalf."

Luffy tilted his head like a puppy. "Wait, if you aren't the guy, then why isn't he here?"

Krieg sighed. "Well, son, he is being dealt with and is therefore _indisposed_ at the moment, if you catch my drift. You see, it was never our intention to cause any harm to this fine community you have built for yourselves."

"No, no," Nami said flatly. "You just decided to harmlessly spy on us instead."

"Just some simple reconnaissance, my dear little lady! We had to determine whether or not you were the kind of folk we would want to associate with! And, well, considering it was your man who shot at mine first, I must say I feel that my man was in the right to defend himself. But I still feel bad for that green fella. Tell me, is he alive?"

"Yeah, he's gonna be fine," Nami said with just a hint of a groan.

Krieg put a hand to his chest and let out a sigh of relief. "Oh now that is a weight off my shoulders. You see, I had feared the worst." He looked around at the glares surrounding him and gestured to all of them. "Oh come now! Come now, no need for such angry looks now! No harm, no foul, as they say, am I right? Now you, big fella! With the hair! Come here a moment, I want to ask you something!" He was looking straight at Franky.

Franky kept the gun in his hand, but he at least lowered it as he stomped his way over to the car. "What's up?"

Krieg slung his arm over Franky's shoulders. "Now you, my good man, seem to be a fella who knows his way around an automobile. Now I reckon a man with your… eccentricities is the one behind that devil of a jeep my associate saw the other day?"

"The Frankystein… Yeah. What about it?"

"Well, I was hoping to see it! Y'see, I'm something of an aficionado myself, ah, what do you make of this sweet baby right here, my good man?" Krieg said, gesturing to his Cadillac.

Franky looked it up and down. "What, the… girl inside?"

Monet smiled from the driver's seat. She had the kind of lackadaisical voice that only came from someone who was most likely a recreational drug user. "Oh don't mind me~", she said in a tone that was half baked and half sultry, "I'm just the driver. I don't really care about what's going on here~"

"No, no, the car, the car! What do you think of this car?" Krieg insisted, still grinning that fake grin.

Franky shrugged, eyebrows raised. "A 1967 Eldorado. Nice car. You a collector or something?"

"Yes! Well, I was, before all this nasty calamity put an end to my collectin' days. Afraid this is the only one I could bring with me when I had to go on the road…" Krieg said forlornly.

Franky shook his head. "Damn shame."

Krieg nodded, and his mood suddenly brightened. "See! See, this is good, the two of us, buildin' a rapport like this! Finding common ground, seein' more similarities than differences, right? What happened yesterday was tragic, but it is imperative that we move past it. Now, see, I can see all y'all glarin' a storm at me," he gestured to everyone doing exactly that. "But I do not see that as hostility towards me! Instead, I see it as a community that cares so deeply about one of their own! And you, boy, you came out here fists a-flyin', aimed at the target you think what caused your friend's misfortune!" He was looking directly at Luffy now. "I have such a _deep_ respect for that much camaraderie."

"Come-radery?" Luffy repeated slowly, trying to sound out all the syllables.

"Camaraderie! Lookin' out for your fellow man! Treatin' him like you would yourself, you know!"

Luffy still looked a little confused, but he got the gist of what Krig was saying. He nodded. "Are you sure that's a real word? Seems like a lot of effort when you could just say something like friendship…"

Krieg looked to Nami. "Not a very bright fella, is he?"

She shrugged.

"Well, listen, before I get outta y'all's hair, I just wanted to ask if I could see that green fella and formally apologize to him directly. Is he available to speak to?"

Nami shook her head. "No, he's still recovering." She paused and then added "Not from the gunshot, that just grazed him. He's nursing a concussion from when he fell."

Krieg nodded solemnly. "I understand. Well!" he gave another look around, putting his hands on his hips to adjust his belt. "I can see that this impromptu meeting has been something of a disturbance in y'all's morning, so I will get outta y'all's hair. I just wanted to make sure there ain't no more hard feelin's and we won't be shootin' at each other next time we meet! If us livin' folk start makin' enemies of each other, well, that just makes the biters' jobs easier, and ain't none of us want that. Pleasure to meet everyone!"

He shook Franky's hand, and then Nami's and Luffy's. It was a vice grip in a massive, calloused hand. He shook it vigorously, with the kind of practiced enthusiasm that indicated a successful deal.

A used car salesman, Nami found herself thinking. He was probably a used car salesman or a politician, or a televangelist. Something that involved a lot of sleaze.

Luffy shook the pain out of his hand when Krieg released his grip and climbed back into the passenger seat of the Eldorado. Perona opened the gate to let them out and was glad to shut it behind them.

Immediately everyone let out the breaths they were holding and unclenched whatever it was they were clenching.

"God, fuuuuuuuuck that guy!" Bonney was heard saying as she stumbled back inside, waving dismissively.

Luffy had his hand on his chin, stroking it in thought. Nami tried to tug him back toward their house, but he wouldn't budge. He was staring at the gate like he could see through it, watch the Eldorado drive away from them. "Y'know what I think?"

"What do you think?" she asked in that way that meant she wasn't really listening, but still wanted to humor him.

"I think that guy was up to something. I think he was just checking us out." He said that with all the confidence in the world, like he had made some grand realization. It was, of course, pretty obvious Krieg didn't actually come to apologize out of the goodness of his heart and concern for the well-being of his fellow man. Halfway through the conversation, Nami, Franky, Robin, and everyone else were already making plans to take up more active guard duty posts and maybe request some more weapons when the delivery runs came.

Still, far be it for Nami to want to make Luffy feel like an idiot. So she just nodded at him, raised her eyebrows. "You don't say. Y'know what? I think you might be onto something there. Now can we please get a _little_ sleep before Baby and Sanji get back?"

It was around that time that the gate opened up again and the Frankystein pulled in from the outside.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12: Not too long after the events of Chapter 11

"God dammit, you people! Can you go one day without hurting yourselves?!" Law shouted. "I've already got enough problems dealing with him!" he pointed at Zoro, still laying on the bed in Law's clinic/basement.

"Well, sorry for fuckin' inconveniencing you. Didn't know _my_ gunshot wound is such a huge burden on you."

"Shut up. Baby, let me fix your hand," he said, beckoning her over. She sat on a countertop, letting Sanji lean back next to her while Law unwrapped the mess of gauze they had wrapped her hand in.

Luffy looked down at Zoro, waving his hand in front of the man's face and watching his eye follow it. "How ya feelin'?"

Zoro shrugged, trying to sit up more. With some effort and holding his side, he managed to do so. "Eh, better. I'll make it. How about you? You two look downright miserable. The hell was going on up there?"

Before either of them could answer, Law suddenly said "Hey, why is _her_ lipstick all over _your_ face?!"

Three heads and five eyes all whipped in Law, Sanji, and Baby's direction. Both of them looked like teenagers who just got caught smoking behind school. Which is actually something that happened to both of them in their youth.

"What? No it's-" Sanji wiped at his face with the back of his hand.

"We were not-" Baby stammered. "We- So-! So who is zhis man who was visiting anyway?" she said with an obviously forced smile. She crossed her legs and rested her chin in the palm of her good hand, looking wide-eyed in Luffy and Nami's direction. "Tell us! We are all very interested!"

Law continued to rebandage Baby's hand while occasionally glaring overprotective glares towards Sanji. Nami and Luffy caught everyone in the room up to speed, which is something I literally just covered so I won't bore you with that. What I will bore you with is what happened next! And also what happened long before all that.

After everything was explained, Sanji stroked his chin in thought. "So you guys don't believe him, right? That he's here to make amends?"

Nami shrugged. "Man, I don't trust anyone by default, but that's because of my upbringing as the daughter of a town leader who had to worry about the safety of all of her people. But I mean, even Luffy could tell he was up to something." She realized what she just said and tried to roll it back. "W-wait, I mean-"

"Yeah, even I noticed he was up to something!" Luffy said with no hint of irony whatsoever.

Sanji furrowed his brow. "Good, because you're absolutely right. He's pulled this shit before. I've seen it myself. He's gonna be back and he's going to try taking this place."

"He will have to pry it from my cold dead hands!" Baby shouted.

"It'll be cold dead _hand_ if you don't sit still and let me work!" Law said. "... Because if the wound gets infected, it might get gangrene and I might have to amputate it. That's what I was going for."

"No, we got it," Zoro said. He turned back to Sanji. "So, you seem to know a lot about this Krieg…"

Sanji waved a dismissive hand. "Hey, before you get any ideas, I was on the receiving end of his… _generosity_ when we met. I never worked for the guy."

Once upon a time, there was a restaurant in West Virginia. It was owned by a crotchety old Italian guy who may or may not have had mob ties. The restaurant was called Baratie and the guy was called Zeff. Now, Zeff was not going to let something as stupid as Zombie Day get in the way of his business model. God had put him on this planet to do two things, prepare and serve food, and break fools.

The Baratie would remain open for business and he would continue taking customers and hiring staff. But before you get any ideas about him being a kindly old man who gave away food for free, hold your horses. He would still demand a payment of some kind. Maybe you worked for him, maybe you traded some supplies. Maybe you just provided the food and had him and his chefs prepare it.

That being said, it was so worth it. Baratie was like an oasis in a ruined world. Rumors spread about the place and people sought it out, seeking refuge and trading whatever they could for a real cooked meal. Yes there were the occasional struggles. Rowdy patrons, attacks from raiders. But no one was really all that interested in trying to conquer the place. Why ruin a good thing?

About a year after Zombie Day, Sanji found himself working at Baratie as a chef. It was like a dream come true. Sure, he was still the new guy, but he was surrounded by food and surly chefs like himself. He was younger than the rest of the staff by a good ten years at least, but he fit right in. And Zeff couldn't have been a better father figure. Which wasn't hard to do, considering Zeff never tried to convince him assassination was a viable career path.

Before Sanji could break his way out of the "new guy" phase, a guy named Gin showed up at the Baratie's door. He was starving, looked exhausted and ragged, could barely stay on his feet. He had enough to trade for his own meal, but after inhaling everything on his plate, he asked about more. He explained that he had a group nearby that didn't have the resources to make it out to the restaurant together, so they sent him. They were running low on food, only a few days' worth left when he took off.

Zeff wasn't in the business of giving out food to people he couldn't see, but Gin was insistent. Sanji volunteered to make the delivery himself, provided Gin could cough up some manner of payment. Eventually Gin and Sanji managed to talk Zeff into letting the newcomer clean dishes and mop the floors for a few days. Zeff intentionally cut things close, knowing Gin's people were on the verge of running out of food, to ensure that he would do a good job.

Again, he wasn't exactly a kindly old soul.

After Gin's time was up, he and Sanji loaded a truck with canned goods and aluminum trays of cooked food to bring back to Gin's people. They were found in a gas station a few miles away from Baratie. About 15 men in total, all of them looking like they belonged in an underground fight club. Sanji had never seen such pure relief and gratitude in his life when they showed up with the food. No one more grateful than the one known as Don Krieg, who looked like he could be a manager of an underground fight club.

Krieg was so grateful, in fact, that when his strength had returned, he made a personal trip to Baratie to thank Zeff. It was the kind of heartwarming moment that reminded the staff why they were doing this. To see a grown man nearly brought to tears, saved from the brink of death.

And then Krieg's balls decided to get big and he figured he would like to own the damn restaurant himself. So he gathered up the guns he could find, the ammo he could scrounge up, and simply walked through the Baratie's front door like an old friend. You see, that is what separated Krieg from the other assholes who tried to take the Baratie. They were unorganized shitheads who came in with guns drawn. Krieg managed to get into the kitchen before he made his move.

Let's go ahead and set the scene as it was all those years ago.

Krieg and his 15 men had surrounded the staff, disarmed them, and had various firearms pointed at them. The staff had their hands up, growling and glaring ineffectively at their captors. All except for Zeff, who was on the ground clutching the knee Krieg had put a shell of buckshot into.

Sanji's hatred was reserved almost exclusively for Gin. He was glaring daggers at the older man, growling "What the fuck, man?! We worked together! We were friends!"

Gin shrugged, trying to act like he didn't care. "It's just business. This is the world now, Sanji." He sounded like he was trying to justify his actions to himself as well.

"That's fucking bullshit. And when this is over, I'm going to stomp your ass into the dirt!" Sanji snapped.

"Shut up, Sanji…" Zeff said from his spot on the floor. He was sweating, breathing heavily, but trying his damnedest to remain composed. "We lost this one. There isn't any way this ends well for us… He's got us by the balls."

Sanji and the rest of the crew shot their head chef a surprised look. Krieg just laughed, applauding slowly. He started pacing around the group, slow circles, like a vulture circling a dying man. "Now, see, I really do appreciate a man who understands the gravity of the situation he's in! Too often we get those wild cards who go off and think themselves some big time hero, savin' the day! But that ain't how the world works, is it? As my associate said, this here is just business. Now, you have something that I want." He was talking in this slow, condescending tone. "And I, you see, have the means, and the desire, to take it. Now, I would be a fool not to! But I am not without a sense of fairness. You helped me and my men and I am still so very grateful f'r that. So if y'all wanna just walk out the front door, no fuss, I am feelin' inclined to let you."

He looked to Sanji, a wide smile pulling across his face. "Besides, I would hate to be the one to wipe out the Vinsmoke family line by killin' their only remainin' son."

Sanji's chest tightened and the rage he was feeling melted into a combination of fear and confusion. "Wh-what did you say?!"

Krieg laughed again, shaking his head. "Now I thought I recognized you! Just took me a while to place the face… Your folks did a whole lotta good.. Be a shame to waste that potential… How about you come work for me, boy?"

At that, Sanji almost lunged at him, but Zeff yelled at him to stop. "Don't you dare, ya idiot! It ain't worth it!"

"Not worth it?!" one of the chefs yelled. "This place is our home! Sanji's our brother! And you're just going to let these guys walk all over us?!"

Zeff didn't look away from Krieg. "It's just a building," he said to the chef.

"Just a building my ass!" He suddenly lunged for one of the thugs who had their gun trained on the staff. A few more got the idea and joined him, five of them making a desperate charge for the group surrounding them. They attempted to wrench the guns from Krieg's men's hands, and before they could even make an effort to pull on them, they were gunned down without a thought.

Bodies hit the ground and stayed that way. No one said a word at first. There was a chill that washed over the remaining staff. They stared in disbelief at the bodies, quiet murmurs traveling through each of them. Krieg ultimately broke the silence by asking "Anyone else wanna deny my generosity?"

The anger building up in the remaining staff was about to boil over in a suicide charge. But Zeff silenced them. "NO! No. We're done. It's over. It isn't worth dying over… It's just a building…"

"But-!" one of them protested.

"It's not! Worth! Dying for!" Zeff barked. "Now someone fucking help me up."

It was the absolute worst feeling in the world. Their choices were to either go out with their tails between their legs, or end up dead on the floor of their home. They weren't sure they were even making the right call when Sanji and another chef helped Zeff stand up and carried him toward the door. As he passed by Krieg, he muttered to him, almost threatening, "It's _just_ a building."

Krieg had no idea what he meant at the time. He would realize it later, but I'll cover that in a little bit.

I'll sum up what happened afterward. Zeff lost the leg. They had to amputate it since they lacked the medical means to try and fix his shattered knee. He didn't make it much further after that. When you can't run, the zombies will get you eventually. After that, the others started going, One by one. As mentioned earlier, Sanji was the only one left by the time he made it to Funkytown.

Sanji told everyone _almost_ all of this. He left out the part about him being a Vinsmoke, but he left in all the other details. It was silent in Law's office as they all processed it. Eventually, Zoro sucked in a breath. "Damn. That's a rough deal," he said. Which is honestly more than anyone else expected from him. Everyone has dead people, that's how it goes in this world. The respectable thing to do is give someone the solemn nod that you understand and empathise.

Sanji nodded grimly, trying to find some amount of levity after dropping his requisite tragic backstory on everyone. "Yeah, you could say th-oof!" the wind was knocked out of him as Baby threw her arms around him in as tight a hug he'd ever had.

It was rib-crushing. She buried her face into his neck and he could hear her growling, "Zhat bastard! Zhat cruel, evil bastard! And zhat Gin fucker, turning on you like zhat?!" Her face was red with anger and her fingers were curled into his shirt.

Sanji laughed, but it was completely mirthless. "Yeah… The one good thing about this is that, if he's still alive, I have a chance to lose a shoe up his ass."

Luffy was fired up just like Baby. "So he kicks you outta your home, kills your friends, leaves the rest of you to die… And now he's here?! He came all the way out here just to mess with you more! I hate this guy so much!"

"I don't think he knows I'm still alive, actually. The fact that I get a chance to pay him back is more… serendipity."

"I dunno what that means, but I'm still gonna knock his teeth out!" Luffy punched a fist into his palm.

"So we got a plan for this guy or what?" Zoro asked. "I'm a fan of striking first. When he shows up again, we don't even let him get to the door. Take him down before he's even a threat."

"Wow, so we just jump straight to preemptive murder, alright…" Nami said a little uneasily. "I mean I was open to suggestions but we're going right for it."

"What's wrong with it? Murder is fun, especially when the victim deserves it. I'm down for it," Zoro said, shrugging.

"Me too! I will kill him!" Baby chirped.

Nami sucked in a breath. "Alright then, well… Are we armed for a full-frontal assault? I don't recall a lot of guns being brought our way. Sanji, what do you think?"

"I honestly have no idea. I only met the guy and his crew the one time, and that was years ago… Who knows what state he's in now? Really, the only advantage we have is that he doesn't know we're on to him."

"That's not a very good advantage…" Luffy pouted. "Why can't we have the advantage where we know everything and we can steamroll all over him?"

"Well, we're a few days off from Hancock's first scheduled shipment. Maybe they'll bring us some guns or ammo. Or we could have them send an army or something?" Nami suggested.

Law lifted his head. "Hey, I got a really important question. Do you have to talk about all this in my fucking office?"

The next couple of days were somehow even more stressful than the previous one. For some reason, I have no idea why, knowing that the Enemy (with a capital E) was actually coming for them one day didn't do much to calm everyone's mood. Everyone had to stay on the lookout for any sign Krig was going to make a move, while simultaneously acting like they weren't on the lookout for any sign he was still watching them. Just in case he was actually still watching them.

This made patrol duty, already everyone's least favorite job, even less fun. It wasn't just a casual walkaround to see if there was a zombie cluster that needed silencing. They were on the lookout for snipers. Or scouts. Or spies. (They probably didn't need to worry about medics or pyros though.) No one was more stressed out than Vivi, who was already not taking things well.

Vivi could deal with defusing arguments, or relieving tension between two parties. She was good at compromise. Or at least, she thought of herself as good at compromise. But if Sanji was to be believed, Krieg wasn't looking to make a deal. He was looking to conquer, and no amount of bartering or parlay would help. So what on earth could she do?

She could listen at the walls, that's what she could do. It was the 14th day since arriving at Little Garden now, and let's just break that down for a second. They as a group could not go two weeks without something going wrong. Not two weeks. Think about that.

It was the 14th day and Vivi was on patrol duty with Robin. Vivi was nervous, jumping at shadows. She alternated between leaning in close to see if she could hear anything on the other side of the wall, and looking back to Robin to make sure she was still standing there and not collapsed on the ground with a sniper round in her head.

"Hear anything?" Robin asked, a bemused smile on her face as Vivi leaned her ear close to the wall.

She stayed silent for a minute, then pulled away. "No… Nothing… It's clear."

Robin raised her water bottle in a mock-toast. "To Nefertari Vivi, the most dedicated sentinel in Little Garden. Let's go another ten feet and listen, maybe the bad guys are there."

Vivi scrunched her face up and glared at Robin, biting her lower lip. "I'm doing my part to keep the outpost safe! Krieg could show up at any time, right?!"

Robin's eyes widened and she smiled wider. "Well, of course. He and his army could barrel down our gate and slaughter us all within the next five minutes! Do you think our heads would look good mounted on spikes? Or do you think Krieg is more the type to throw our bodies in a pile and burn them and be done with it?"

The younger girl shivered, running her fingers through her hair, trying to get the mental image out of her mind. "Why do you _say_ things like that?!" she shrieked.

"I find that verbalizing the worst case scenario helps me mentally prepare for it."

"So you don't have high hopes for our survival either, huh?" Vivi said gloomily.

Robin made a show of looking surprised and a little offended. "Wha-! I didn't say the most _likely_ outcome! I said the _worst_ outcome!"

"Well-! I'm sorry, I'm just… I'm really freaking out here! I'm not at all ready for this kind of thing! I can kill a zombie no problem, I'm not- Well, I am afraid of them, but… I can deal with that. I can't deal with this."

Robin looked at her, confused. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about how… Ugh! Coby and I have been… debating… whether or not we want to stay here any longer, and as much as I don't _want_ to, I really think I should leave. And I'm trying to talk myself out of running away, but if this is going to come to a shootout in the middle of town, then I- I-..." Vivi was frustrated, tripping over her words and she had no idea if what she was saying was coming out clear or not.

The expression on Robin's face said that it was not. "Vivi, what are you _talking_ about?"

"I don't wanna shoot people! That's what I'm saying! I know Krieg is downright evil, but I don't have it in me to shoot someone who's still alive!" she finally yelled like it was a desperate confession of something scandalous.

"Then… don't." Robin said.

"Wh-... what?"

"Don't fight. Hide. Stay safe. If you're going to hesitate, then you're going to be a liability." Robin could tell by Vivi's expression that her answer came off far more coldly than she intended. Regardless, she made no effort to backpedal. "You don't have to be a warrior, we already have a lot of those. I'd rather you stay out of the way than try and force yourself into something as serious as this."

The sound of a horn blaring made both of their hearts skip a beat. "Dammit… Alright, decide right now. Are you in or out?"

"I-I-" Vivi stammered.

"In or out, princess?" Robin demanded again.

"I-... IN!" she squeaked.

Robin nodded. "Alright. Come on," she beckoned Vivi to follow her as they both raced for the gate. Bonney, Franky, and Luffy had also heard the horn go off and were rushing for the entrance as well.

"THIS IS IT, KIDS!" Franky barked. He had a revolver in one hand and a bandolier around his chest, loaded with grenades. A shotgun was holstered to his back. Bonney had a pistol in each hand and a machete at her hip. She was in the process of chewing through a Tootsie Pop and somehow managed to make that look tough. Luffy had taken the liberty of wrapping his baseball bat in barbed wire, for that extra nefarious kick. They would be the first line of defense when the time came. They stood next to the gate, their backs against the wall. Ready to ambush Krieg at a moment's notice. Franky's free hand hovered over the opener.

Robin and Vivi scrambled up the ladder next to the gate and peered over the edge…


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13: Immediately after Chapter 12, 14 days after arriving in Little Garden

Robin and Vivi were expecting an Eldorado followed by a number of other vehicles. When they peeked over the wall to see what was waiting outside the gate, they saw a single pickup truck with a bed full of supplies. Regardless, they both popped up with their guns trained on the vehicle. Vivi's grip was a little shakier than Robin's. After a moment, two pairs of arms stuck out of either window on the truck, holding them up in surrender.

"Wh-whoa hey, yo, what's with the greeting, bro?!" one voice called out.

"Yeah dude, we like, come in peace and junk! Yo, we're just the delivery guys! Her rulerness Hancock sent us, yo!"

Robin glanced at Vivi, who shook her head. She wasn't exactly sure what she was shaking her head at, but everything about this felt like "no". It was up to Robin to decide what Vivi meant, and she took it to mean Vivi didn't trust their claim.

"Do you have any proof?" Robin shouted.

"Y-yeah! Proof!" Vivi stammered.

There was a brief silence as the duo in the truck had a conversation. The one behind the wheel shouted out, "Yo, is Bonney or Zoro there? If they are, tell 'em Johnny and Yosaku are here, bro! They'll vouch for us and stuff! I'm Johnny! This guy's Yosaku!"

Robin glanced to Vivi again and nudged her head toward Bonney down below. Vivi just looked confused at her, and Robin made a more obvious head-nudge toward Bonney. Vivi silently mouthed "Oh!" and ducked down behind the wall.

"Hey! Bonney!" she whispered. "Do you know a pair of guys named Johnny and Yosaku?"

"Do they say 'yo' a lot and seem like they don't know what they're doing?"

"Oh yeah."

"Let 'em in."

Robin gave Franky a thumbs-up and he opened the gate. Vivi, relieved that she wouldn't have to open fire on anyone, slid down to sit on the edge of the balcony. "Oh thank God… Why did I say I was in? I'm not in! I'm so far out! I was not at all ready for stuff to go down!"

Robin started scaling the ladder. "Glad we figured that out now instead of when we're being shot at."

Johnny and Yosaku were a little shaken, clearly unaccustomed to having guns on them and orders barked at them. Their tension was slightly relieved after they climbed out and saw Bonney amongst the five who were there to greet them. They still had their hands up in surrender when they climbed out of the car anyway.

"Hey guys. Sup?" Bonney said, chill as possible. She held her fist up and the duo hesitantly bumped it with their own.

"Yo, Bon, sis, what the heck's with all the stuff…?" Johnny asked.

Bonney groaned in frustration. "Man, it's a whole… Big fuckin' thing." She turned to Franky and Luffy. "This guy here's Johnny, and the other one's his heterosexual life partner Yosaku. Guys, these two are Franky and Luffy. The gals up top who fuckin' threatened you are Robin and Vivi."

Franky extended his hand to shake theirs. "Sorry about giving you a hard time. We're all on edge right now, can't be too careful."

"So you guys brought the shipment? What's on the truck?" Luffy was already bounding toward it. Robin and Vivi met him around the back, and he opened the tailgate to hop up into the bed. There were duffel bags, coolers, and lockboxes strewn about, held down with bungee cords.

Yosaku shrugged. "I dunno, man, Her Empressship had it loaded up for us, yo. We just drove it out here. I guess she just put whatever she thought would be good…"

"Sweet! It's like Christmas only there's no snow and none of them are wrapped!" Luffy picked up a duffel bag and unzipped it. He frowned immediately. "Aww, it's just clothes…"

"Are there shoes in there?" Vivi asked.

Luffy dug through the bag a little. "Don't see any. Here, you look!" he said, and immediately tossed the bag to her. She was not expecting this, so she yelped and fumbled. She managed to keep a hold of it, though.

"What about bullets and guns?" Robin asked.

"Uhhhh…. OOH SWEET!" he cheered. He bent over and picked up a case.

"You found the guns?"

"Nope!" Luffy said, grinning. He reached inside the case and pulled out a bottle of cola. "Snacks!"

Franky perked up, "Aw no way! She came through! See, that's what makes her such a good leader!"

"Focus!" Robin snapped. "We can dig through snacks later."

"Okay, okay…" Luffy pouted. He continued searching through the bed of the truck. "Okay, yeah, there's some gun cases and stuff here, but they're locked… But… THIS ONE ISN'T!" he bent over and popped back up holding an M32 grenade launcher.

"PUT THAT DOWN!" Both Vivi and Robin screeched.

"SLOWLY!" Robin added, to cover all her bases. She would've expected Luffy to just drop the thing. He did as he was told, setting it down gently while rolling his eyes.

"It wasn't loaded or anything!" he said.

"Yo, for real though, can someone like… fill in the two new dudes about what's goin' on? I feel all… Locked outta the loop and stuff," Yosaku said.

Franky crossed his arms. "The long and short of it is, we're sort of anticipating an attack from this other group. They've kinda made it clear that they're planning on trying to take this place, but we can't exactly do anything about it. We don't know where they are, or what their numbers are, or what kinda heat they're packing. So we're just waiting for them to attack so we can defend ourselves."

Johnny and Yosaku both scratched their chins, in perfect mirror images of each other. "Y'don't say, bro…" Yosaku said. "That's some rough stuff…"

"Yo, d'you think it might be those dudes we saw on the freeway?" Johnny asked his partner.

Everyone sort of stopped what they were doing and looked toward the duo.

"Ehwha?" Franky said.

Oblivious, Yosaku nodded. "Yeah, might be… Yo, you dudes ever drive down 195? There's like, a camp with a buncha RVs and stuff all parked out on one of the exit ramps. We kinda drove past 'em on the way in, but we didn't see anyone."

Franky was agape, eyes wide and jaw about to hit the floor. He managed to hold himself together long enough to stammer out "D-Did… Did you happen to see a 1967 Eldorado there? A maroon one?"

Johnny shrugged. "Yo I dunno a lot about cars, bro. But like, I think there was an old grandpa car there."

Johnny and Yosaku suddenly felt uncomfortable as once again, all eyes were on them. But not out of malice this time. It was more like pure shock. Everyone's mouth hung open in disbelief. Luffy, who had been holding a small cooler, dropped it right into his foot. He didn't seem to notice.

"Alright, let's go right now! Let's go wrap this up!" he said, hopping off the back of the truck and bouncing around the others. "Let's go let's go let's go!"

"This would be an excellent time for some reconnaissance…" Robin said, once she got over her shock.

"Or it's an excellent time to do what Zoro said and take 'em all down at once!" Luffy insisted. "I will even drive!" he volunteered.

Vivi nodded in agreement with Robin. "This is valuable information. We should make sure we use it carefully and discuss it with the others before we make any sort of movement."

Luffy pulled at his hair and let out the most dramatic groan of frustration any human being had ever heard.

Despite his insistence, when the news was revealed to the rest of Little Garden, the consensus was to wait until nightfall before heading out to spy on the other group. They would send out a small team to procure some information and then report back and prepare accordingly. This was the smart thing to do and they at least understood that much.

As a concession, Luffy was allowed to be on the recon team, along with Baby and Sanji because like fucking hell was Sanji going to miss out on this opportunity. Johnny and Yosaku went with them, for two reasons. One was because they didn't have the ability to point out exactly where the camp was located on a map, and the other was to serve as a distraction. They had to get back to DC anyway, so they drove past the camp with their headlights on, making it fairly obvious someone was driving past. The thought being the camp would see their truck, and not check to see if anyone else was coming.

Sanji kept the headlights in his car off, and parked a fair ways away from the camp. The trio approached on foot, staying on the side of the highway until they could get a decent look at the glow coming from the few campfires that illuminated the area. They were about the length of a hockey rink away, a fair enough distance to not be seen. The trio laid flat on the ground, masking themselves even further in the darkness, while Sanji peered through the scope of a hunting rifle. Luffy just tried squinting, but he couldn't make it work.

"What do you see?" Baby whispered.

"A whole lotta nothing. I count… three RVs and they're sort of parked in a triangle. I guess to keep out the zombies… It's making it hard to see anyone."

Sanji could make out three people sitting on top of the RVs, armed with rifles. Aside from the RVs, Sanji could also see the Eldorado, once and for all confirming that this was indeed Krieg's group. The only other vehicle of note was a military jeep, like the Frankystein. Although, while this one wasn't armor-plated, it did have a big fucking minigun perched on top of it.

From their perches, the three guards could cover the entire makeshift camp, which made Sanji tell the others to suggest they have three people watch the walls from now on, as that seemed way more efficient than just two.

"Recognize any of 'em?" Luffy asked, rocking side to side in the grass to stave off his fidgeting.

Sanji shook his head. "I don't really… At the time, I didn't think to memorize all their faces in case I ever ran into them again. I was too busy freaking out because one of my friends was just shot in front of me."

Both Luffy and Baby swallowed heavily. "Zhat is… understandable," she said.

"Let me take another look, though…" He peered through the scope again, attempting to study the men on patrol duty. It was difficult. The scope wasn't equipped with night vision, so he had to rely on the flames to see anything. "God, we are really unprepared for this, aren't we?" he said with a hint of frustration.

"What do you mean? We are being proactive!" Baby said.

"Yeah, aren't we doing all this spy stuff to get the upper hand?" Luffy asked.

Sanji brought the rifle away from his face. "No way, they were way more proactive than we were. Look at us, not a single one of us thought we'd be attacked by humans. We thought we were just tucked away, and if someone did come looking for us, they'd be friendly. We planned for zombies. I mean, they don't even have a wall and they're more secure than us. They knew exactly where we were, how to hit us, how to get inside our outpost to scope us out. I mean, shit, they don't have half the gear and backing we do, and they still ran circles around us!"

"Well, if we can't outplan them, we'll just have to outpunch them," Luffy said casually.

"I like zhe sound of outpunching. Nozhing is more satisfying zhan ruining a plan zhrough stubborn stupidity," Baby chimed in.

"Ooh, I'd like to hear how you outpunch an assault rifle~" came a flighty voice from behind them.

The three of them tensed up and simultaneously turned their heads to look over their shoulders. Monet was grinning down at them in the darkness. She and her partner, a tall guy who was… wearing sunglasses when it was almost midnight, were both pointing assault rifles at the backs of the trio. "See, unlike you guys? We have night vision scopes on our guns. And? We're smart enough to figure out that a truck full of supplies going _toward_ the direction of the only settlement around? And then seeing it come _back_ without the supplies? We should pay attention to that truck."

Sanji groaned. "See? This is the kinda shit I'm talking about!"

Baby nodded, eyes still on the guns. "No, no, I understand what you mean now."

"You better not have hurt Johnny and Yosaku!" Luffy growled. "They don't have anything to do with this!"

Laughing, Monet circled around to their front. The gun at their backs kept them prone, so she crouched down in front of them. "Oh please, we don't care about them. We're way more interested in this catch. Krieg'll be so glad to see you dropped by~" She fished a walkie-talkie out of her back pocket. It looked military grade, probably came from the same place the jeep did.

"Aww maaannn… They have walkie-talkies…" Luffy said. "Why don't we have those?"

"You were right, Boss," she said into the device. "They came following the truck, tried to spy on us in the dark. I can't believe they'd stoop so low~"

The device crackled to life. "Good, good. Now, be a dear and bring them here, won't you?"

Sanji bristled at the sound of his voice and it took a lot of willpower to not try and snatch the device out of Monet's hand and shout every single obscenity he knew into the speaker. That stupid accent, that annoying, jovial attitude. Sanji concluded that Krieg was every negative thing he could think of.

"Anything for you, Boss~" Monet said. Baby bristled too, but for an entirely different reason. She glared up at Monet.

"Who do you zhink you are? Being zhe hot, sexually charged but also zhreatening one is _my_ gimmick!"

"Oh, whatever, Frenchie. Come on, Vergo. Let's get these guys to the camp." Monet stood back up and watched as Vergo leaned down to smash the butt of his rifle into the back of Sanji's head. He went limp instantly, and Luffy and Baby both gasped in shock. Monet's eyes widened. "Wh… Why did you do that?"

Vergo stood there in silence. "Do what?"

"Why'd you knock him out?"

Again, silence. Vergo didn't seem to understand. "Was I not supposed to? We need to keep him from finding out where our camp is."

Monet looked over her shoulder and then back at Vergo. "Our camp's right there. We caught them _spying_ on us. Now we have to drag him back to it instead of just marching them at gunpoint. And hell, we probably gotta knock them out too, because they might try to make a move while we're lugging his sorry ass."

"Yeah, a move like THIS-!" Luffy managed to shout. He made a move to get to his feet, but he didn't get very far before Vergo swung the rifle like a club and smacked him in the side of the head. He dropped like a big bag of dog food.

Baby looked to Sanji and then to Luffy. She bit her lower lip and said as peacefully as possible, "I will go quietly?"

"Shyeah right, Frenchie. I don't buy that for a second. And stop looking up my skirt," Monet said.

"You are not wearing a-" Baby said before there was another thwack and the world was, very briefly, incredibly painful. And then it was just dark.

When the world came back into existence, it came back with a vengeance. Baby's head was pounding as she tried to make sense of her current situation. Her eyes fluttered open and she was almost immediately blinded again by the sun shining through the window. Window? So she was inside. She heard Luffy groan out "No more bar hoppin', Nami…" and felt something move underneath her legs.

It turned out her bed was made of two men. And as she tried to sit up, she realized she was handcuffed with her hands stuck behind her back. I could make a joke about this situation but I'm going to take the classier route of not telling it to you, but not too classy as I'm also putting the idea in your head. When her vision cleared enough, she could see that Sanji and Luffy were similarly handcuffed, and she could tell the room they were in was small. The bed they were on took up the majority of the floorspace.

Sanji stirred to life underneath her back and she sat up more to give him a little more room. "What the hell…? Fuck, that's right. They got the drop on us, didn't they?"

"I am afraid zhey did, mon amor…" Baby said. "And now we are zheir prisoner in zhis… eugh… RV."

"Hey, sorry, it's the best we could fucking do," another voice, not belonging to Monet _or_ Vergo, drew the trio's attention. With a great deal of shifting and nearly kicking each other in the face, they managed to turn to face the source of it.

"GIN!" Sanji screamed, almost lunging forward. He would've made it if he could use his hands. Gin was sprawled out in a folding chair at the foot of the bed. One arm was draped over the back of the chair, and the other was laid across his lap, his fingers wrapped around a pistol.

"So. Zhis is Gin," Baby said coldly.

"Man… He kinda looks like Law," Luffy said. "If Law was like… ten years older and got less sleep."

Still glaring daggers at Gin, Baby said "Zhat is impossible. No one gets less sleep zhan Law."

"You're looking well, Sanji. Taking care of yourself," Gin said, ignoring the other two.

"Well, you're looking… like a sack of shit," Sanji said.

Gin barely showed any emotion at that remark. "Y'know, you could afford to be a little nicer. This is the second time I've been able to keep you alive."

"Keep me alive?! You kicked me out of my fucking home! My friends all died out there! Your fucking boss shot my mentor in the leg! How the fuck is that 'keeping me alive'?!"

Gin looked mildly offended, as though his sacrifice should have been obvious. "Who do you think it was that talked Krieg into letting you guys go in the first place? He wanted to just slaughter the lot of you and be done with it. Before we got to the Baratie, I managed to convince him to let you all go. Just like I convinced him that I could get you three to join us. That's why you aren't all dead in a ditch right now."

None of them looked very grateful for that. "Y'know, if you really were trying to be a hero, you could've also tried to talk Krieg into not fucking with us at all. Just saying, that was an option all those years ago," Sanji growled.

Gin shrugged. "We needed a place to stay, what can I say? I have to look out for myself, you know. Just like we need a place to stay now and well, again, you've got the perfect little spot."

"Where is Krieg anyway? I owe him another punch to the teeth!" Luffy demanded.

"Oh, he's… He's gone," Gin said. "Yeah… He was going to wait for you to wake up, but he got impatient… Said he wanted to take care of this now. So he's uh… He just left for your little town there to… y'know. Slaughter all your friends."


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14: 15 days after arriving in Little Garden

Krieg was feeling pretty damn pleased with himself. He knew from his initial visit that Little Garden had a relatively small population, and he also knew that three of its members were currently handcuffed back at his camp. If he was lucky, then one more would still be down from a gunshot wound. He also knew the only major form of protection they had was a wall with a single gate that could easily be bypassed with enough physical might. That is why he was sitting in the passenger seat of a military jeep with an RV containing six of his men following close behind. It was a clear day, with only a few biters futily grabbing at the speeding cars as they drove down the highway, en route to Little Garden.

Krieg had his feet on the dashboard, leaning back in his seat and basking in assured victory. "Now, I hope you two realize the importance of today! Because tonight, we are all going to sleep nice and cozy in our own beds, with an actual roof over our heads! Now I know we have had a _hell_ of a time, but we are finally going to get our due." He elbowed the driver of the jeep. "Vergo, Vergo,what are you most lookin' forward to?"

"Looking forward to?" Vergo asked, not taking his eyes off the road.

"Yeah! Y'know, about havin' a place all to yourself!" Krieg nudged him again.

Vergo was silent for a good long while. "... Wait, what?"

"Aw forget it! Monet! What about you!" he called up to her. She was standing at the minigun, wind blowing her hair in her face.

"I'm looking forward to a real bathroom," she said.

Krieg burst into laughter. "It's the simple things, ain't it!?" His tone changed when they turned onto the subdivision Little Garden was located in. "Alright, it's showtime. Let's make this good…"

Meanwhile, back home, Law and Perona were on guard duty. They watched from the balcony as a military jeep and an RV turned onto the street leading straight to the outpost and they both immediately ducked down. They peeked their heads up just enough to see as the woman riding the minigun took aim in their general direction.

"Oh that's not good," Perona squeaked. Law grabbed her by the back of her shirt and threw her to the side, pulling both of them down flat on the balcony floor. It wouldn't have done them any good if Monet were actually aiming for them. They were lucky she hadn't actually seen them. Instead she opened fire on the gate itself, pumping round after round into the thick steel, eventually starting to tear through it.

Obviously, the other seven in the outpost heard the sound of bullets colliding with metal and they gathered around their respective houses' windows to see what the hell was going on. Franky and Robin were in Franky's house, looking through the window in his bedroom. Nami was with Vivi and Coby at their place, and they had gathered around the front window, backs to the wall, peering as much as possible through the glass. Finally, Zoro and Bonney were watching through the window of an office on the second floor of their house.

They were there just in time to see an RV ram its way through the damaged gate like a battering ram, screeching to a stop as the metal slab that once kept the zombies out clattered to the ground. When it came to a complete stop, the six men inside piled out, all of them armed with assault rifles. The jeep followed after it, pulling up to the RV's left, and Krieg stood up. Monet handed him a megaphone, which he held up to his face. Pressing the button sent a wave of feedback that made everyone cringe. When that died down, he spoke into it. "I am so sorry for the abrupt entrance, but I wanted to illustrate how serious of a matter this is! Now if y'all could just step outside of your homes and surrender nice and cleanlike, that'd be great!"

There was no immediate response. It was dead silent. Perona and Law were still laying on the balcony above them, sincerely hoping beyond all hope that no one in the group decided to look behind them. The duo were practically clinging to each other, afraid of any sound they could make.

Krieg brought the megaphone back to his face. "Now come on, let's not make this here situation any more difficult than it needs t'be! If y'all could just come out with your hands up! Do I need to explain it? We got your friends, y'know! Reckon it'd be real smart a' you to cooperate, if'n you ever want a chance to see them again!"

There was still no reaction, prompting Krieg to lean back to Monet and whisper to her. "Alright, well, I am stumped here. What do you reckon is goin' on?"

Monet shrugged. "Maybe they packed up and left? Or they all died or something. These guys seem like the type to get all pissed off if their friends get threatened."

Inside Coby and Vivi's house, Nami muttered "Boy am I glad Luffy's not here to get pissed off because his friends were threatened…"

"Well, now I don't think… That… Hm…" His eyes widened in consideration. "I s'pose it's possible. Hey! Higuma!"

A tall, lanky guy covered in bandages looked over to Krieg. "Yeah, Boss!"

"Go take a look at that there house!" Krieg said, pointing to Zoro and Bonney's place.

Now at this point, a lot of things started happening pretty much all around the same time. I'm going to do my best to cover it all, so bear with me as we jump back and forth through time. If you get lost, just reread it again until you understand it.

Higuma, eager to please, headed up to the house without any hesitation. "Well, they ain't shootin' him now, so maybe they are gone…" Krieg muttered. Higuma made it to the front door and tried the handle. It opened, to his surprise, and he waved to the rest of his party before stepping inside.

He snooped around the ground floor a little, peeking his head around corners, tiptoeing as silently as he could. An assault rifle wouldn't do him much good in close quarters like this, so he let it hang from the shoulder strap and pulled out a large, serrated knife instead. He was almost hoping to run into some poor schmuck. The ground floor seemed clear, so he made his way upstairs.

The first room he looked in on was the office, where he saw Zoro standing there with a big grin plastered on his face. His arms were crossed and Higuma looked at him like he was looking at a ghost. "Hey," Zoro said.

Higuma stared, wide-eyed.

"I remember you. You're the guy who shot me."

Higuma snapped out of it enough to move his body. He charged forward, knife out, ready to finish what he started a few days ago. Zoro was just a little faster, able to draw one of his swords in time to block Higuma's charge. He still wore that manic grin as they struggled against each other. Zoro managed to push Higuma away, sending him stumbling back. He quickly regained his balance and took more panicked swipes with his knife. Zoro was a trained swordsman, but there really was nothing worse than fighting someone who was panicking and not thinking clearly.

Higuma swung wide, arm outstretched enough that he nearly threw himself off balance with every swipe. Zoro nimbly dodged around the office, circling him and more or less mocking him. The room wasn't very big, there wasn't a lot of room to maneuver, but he made the most of it. Higuma came close several times, a long vertical slash downward nearly took off Zoro's ear. "Whoa! Haha! You're gonna have to do better than that!"

Higuma did, eventually. He thrust out and managed to catch Zoro in the eye, leaving a nice, long vertical gash from his cheek to his eyebrow. Fortunately for Zoro, it was the eye that had already been scarred over. "Oh you dumbass. Wrong eye." Zoro raised his arm back as Higuma let out one final squeak of protest.

And then Higuma was no more.

So a few minutes before that, back when Higuma was just starting to walk into the house, Robin was watching it from the window, cursing under her breath. "This is going to end poorly… How armed are we in here?"

Franky scratched his chin. "I got my revolver and a shotgun that I still haven't welded back to the Frankystein. Hey! Think we could climb in that and just run 'em all down? Like a bowling ball!"

"... No. I don't think that will work at all."

"Eh, worth a shot… What about you? Are you armed?"

Robin bit her thumbnail. "I have a hunting rifle. I was supposed to go on patrol in an hour…"

"Alright, well… Situation does sound super dire… But, y'know! Could be worse!"

Robin said, with as flat a tone as possible, "Your optimism is astounding…"

Nami, Coby, and Vivi weren't faring much better. Equally hesitant to reveal themselves and face the wrath of ten- well, nine- assault rifles, they were pinned to the walls next to the main front window. Their backs were magnetized like cover-based-shooter protagonists, tilting their heads just barely enough to see Higuma disappear into Zoro and Bonney's house.

"Okay… Okay well, one of them is about to die," Nami said. "That's a start at least. As long as Zoro and Bonney don't do anything stupid, we should be able to come up with a strategy."

Coby made a choking noise. Nami didn't even look away from the window. "Yeah, realized it as soon as I said it."

All three parties, Franky and Robin, Nami, Vivi, and Coby, and Krieg's group, were able to see perfectly when Higuma's headless body was suddenly flung out the front door, onto the front porch.

Inside the house, Zoro was cackling, dusting his hands off. "Oh man, that is _really_ gonna piss them off!"

"AND GET US ALL KILLED!" Bonney shrieked. "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING?!"

Still bleeding from his eye, he turned around to give her a manic grin. "This is gonna be fun."

And that's when the bullets started tearing through their front door. Zoro and Bonney both hit the ground as fast as possible. "GREAT! GREAT, YOU MOTHERFUCKER! THIS IS ALL YOUR GODDAMN FAULT!"

The gunshots sounded like they were getting closer, like whoever was shooting was moving up. Then, just as abruptly as they started, they came to a halt, and the duo could hear someone screaming in agony. Zoro and Bonney both looked at each other, decided to not even question it, and sprang back up to their feet. Zoro made a move for the door and Bonney grabbed the back of his shirt. "Where the hell are you going?! We need to go out through the back!"

"Why the hell would I want to go out through the back? The bad guys are out front."

A few minutes earlier, Krieg and his men were watching Higuma's body being dumped unceremoniously onto a front porch. He stammered in disbelief, which quickly melted away into rage. "ABSALOM! MORGAN! SHOOT THAT FUCKIN' HOUSE UP!"

Two more of Krieg's men broke away from the group, opening full-auto fire onto the door. The bullets pinged off the brick wall surrounding the door, but the weaker wood gave way and it was quickly peppered with holes.

Absalom took the lead, just a few yards away from the driveway, when a bullet penetrated his hip and forced him down to the ground, howling in pain. Morgan stood frozen for a second, then scanned the area for any sign of a shooter. He quickly realized standing out in the open when you don't know where a shooter is, is a bad idea and scrambled back to the relative safety of the RV, joining the rest of his crew in hiding behind the RV's right. The shot even got Krieg, Monet, and Vergo to scramble out of the jeep and take cover as well, leaving Absalom to writhe and scream in the middle of the street.

The shot came from Franky's bedroom window. A few minutes earlier, before Higuma was tossed outside, Robin was looking down the scope of her hunting rifle and agonizing over whether or not to take a shot. "It's a hunting rifle. I only have one shot, so whoever I don't hit is going to open fire on us."

"Sittin' here isn't solving our issues either, though…" Franky countered.

"Yes, well- Wait, what's going...?" she said. She watched Higuma's body flop all over the place. "Oh dear." She and Franky watched Krieg yell something and then two guys opened fire on the house.

"Okay, well, now or never, Robin!"

"I know! I know!" She gritted her teeth, looked through the scope and targeted the one who looked the most vulnerable to gunfire, and pulled the trigger. She downed him in an instant, but didn't quite kill him. The other guy looked around and then ran behind the RV for cover before she could even have a chance to line up another shot. For a while, everything was quiet…

It was time to take advantage of that. Law and Perona scrambled back to their feet, staying crouched down and scurrying across the balcony. Right now, they couldn't see any of Krieg's men, save for the guy bleeding and screaming in the road, which meant _they_ couldn't be seen either. Their goal was to get to the safety of Franky's backyard, which seemed rock solid until they saw Morgan's head peek out from behind the RV, point at the second floor window, and scream "SHOT CAME FROM THERE!"

Law and Perona froze. With the way everyone was positioned, Morgan had to turn his head just sliiiightly to his left and they would be right within eyesight. He didn't, fortunately, and instead he and another one of Krieg's goons only popped out of cover far enough to open fire on the window. Which also wasn't very good, but since it was happening to someone _else_ , Law and Perona found it a better alternative.

Meanwhile, Nami, Vivi, and Coby were taking advantage of that earlier silence to sneak out the back door. "You know what we need? We need that grenade launcher…" Nami said, peeking around the corner of the house and looking out into the street. Right now, they still had the RV between them and Krieg's gang. However, the grenade launcher was in the storage house, which meant if they were going to cross through everyone's backyards to get there, eventually they would be exposed running from one house to the next.

They decided to go for it, crossing the exposed area between houses and hiding behind the corner of Law and Perona's house. Passing over to Zoro and Bonney's place would put them in full view of everyone, but Krieg's men seemed somewhat distracted with the shootout against Robin and Franky.

They almost made it. Coby and Vivi crossed with no problem, but when it was Nami's turn, one of Krieg's men noticed her, turned around, and opened fire. She dodged nearly all of them, but ended up taking one in her right leg, just before managing to get behind cover. She fell to the ground and clutched at the new wound, cursing like a sailor who had just been shot. "FUCK-! GOD- DAMMIT AGH!"

"Oh man, Nami! Are you okay?!" Coby asked, prompting both Nami and Vivi to glare at him. "R-Right, dumb question. Uh, is that guy still…" Coby scurried back to the corner and peered out onto the street. The shooter was still focused on them, and he was about to come after them when a hail of gunfire rained from the front door.

"AHAHAHA! I GOT YOUR OWN GUY'S GUN, FUCKERS!" Zoro screamed. He wasn't entirely stupid, just bloodthirsty and thrill-seeking. He was charging from the doorway, spraying bullets Rambo style into the group of thugs huddled next to the RV. Unfortunately, Zoro was a swordsman first and a gunner second. He managed to keep the thug who shot Nami from pursuing, but most of the others scattered to safety behind the back of the RV. Meaning, when Zoro's gun started clicking, he had barely managed to hit anyone.

"HAH! PATHETIC!" one of Krieg's men shouted. In response, Zoro threw the empty assault rifle at him, with enough power behind it to knock him down. Then he had to quickly backpedal toward his house, to avoid getting shot to death out in the open. He scrambled through the door and slammed it shut just in time, and then felt the whole world shift.

"Whoo. Haha, maybe I should sit down," he said as the bloodloss made his vision blur.

No longer being shot at, the goon who shot Nami was free to finish the job. He sprinted around the corner, where Coby and Vivi were trying to carry Nami up the back porch. When they heard the gun cock, they all whirled around and immediately toppled backwards. He brought the rifle up to blow them away, to which Vivi threw up her hand and yelled "STOP!"

To everyone's surprise, the thug's included, he didn't immediately turn them into corpses. He just stared down at Vivi, not sure what to do. Vivi, not expecting to get this far, fumbled to come up with something to say. "Y-you don't have to do this, you know! You don't have to kill us, you can-"

"Vivi, what are you doing…?" Coby whispered.

"Sssshhh, honey…" she turned back to the man with a gun pointed at her. "You can totally just… walk away! I know the world is… kind of messed up, with survival of the fittest and all, but… But you don't _have_ to be this way! It's not too late! I know you've… You've probably done some bad things, but right now. Today! You can make a change!"

He paused and the gun lowered. He seemed genuinely shocked, and for a moment, Vivi felt relief. Then he shook his head. "Nah, this is easier."

The three of them flinched, eyes screwing shut and there was a gunshot. Their eyes opened slowly and they could see the thug, sans part of his skull, crumple to the ground and bleed out onto the grass. They turned their heads to see Bonney standing in the doorway on the porch, pistol aimed at where the guy used to be.

"Hey, I literally just fuckin' got out here. That was the right thing to do, right?" She asked.

Nami tried to sit up more, groaning in pain. "Yeah- Yeah, that's fine, look, can we just get me inside!? Where the FUCK is Law?!" Coby and Bonney helped her up, and she looked over to Vivi. "Hey, nice save. If you didn't stall him, we'd probably all be dead."

Vivi blinked, shivering a little. She didn't turn to face Nami. "N-... No problem. Hey, I'm gonna go throw up okay?" She stumbled inside in a daze and walked past Zoro on the way to the bathroom.

So how were Law and Perona doing anyway? Well, they were pounding on the doorwall to Franky and Sanji's house since it was locked and they weren't going to try and walk in through the front door. Especially with all that gunfire going on out front.

However, when the gunfire started dying down, that just made them even more nervous. Robin and Franky were fast running out of bullets, whereas Krieg's men had brought an entire RV filled with ammo. Eventually the shots stopped coming from the bedroom window and Krieg knew why immediately. "Well! They ain't shootin' no more! I reckon their last stand is at an end!" He pointed to Vergo and Monet. "C'mon, let's get in there and take what's ours!"

Vergo nodded. "Right. But we should be careful. I think there's a sniper up there in that window…"

Krieg stood there for a good ten seconds before putting his hand on Vergo's shoulder. "Good eye, son. Good eye."

The three of them rounded the corner of the RV, exposing themselves. Granted, Monet and Vergo went first, just in case, but nothing came at them. Krieg clapped and shouted as loud as he could. "GOOD EFFORT! GOOD EFFORT, Y'ALL! YOU GOT A FEW OF MY MEN THERE, BUT, WELL, TO THE VICTOR GOES THE SPOILS! I AM GOING TO ENJOY KILLIN' ALL Y'ALL!"

They approached the front door and knocked on it. "NOW, Y'ALL WANNA COME OUT AND DIE LIKE GENTLEMEN? NO?"

So they walked around the back instead, and looked upon Law and Perona trying desperately to get inside. Both groups made eye contact and there was a horrible, awkward silence between them. Law eventually broke it, both hands still trying to pull the door open, with a "Hey. What's good?"

Three rifles went up at them and Krieg chuckled. "Looks like you two are first… All I gotta do is-"

That's when his walkie-talkie suddenly chirped to life. "Uh… Hey, Boss? You got a sec?"

Rolling his eyes dramatically, Krieg reached into his back pocket and pulled it out. "Gin! Now I am in the middle of some business here, so you had better have a DAMN good reason for interruptin' me! Now what can I do for you?"

"Hey, shitdick!" That wasn't Gin's voice. That was Sanji's. And boy did he sound chipper. "How's it going? Remember me?"


	15. Chapter 14 point 5

Chapter 14.5

Unbeknownst to everyone, the sound of prolonged gunfire and shouting was drawing unwanted attention. In the form of a starving, rotted horde.


	16. Chapter 15

Chapter 15: Pretty much right where chapter 13 left off

"You son of a bitch!" Sanji struggled in his handcuffs. "Call him back! Get him to turn around!" He demanded uselessly.

Gin shook his head, chill as hell compared to the other three. "Not doing that. Even if I wanted to, he wouldn't turn around just because I asked. Besides, I don't want to. I am so looking forward to sleeping in a bed instead of a car."

Sanji just glared at him. "Oh, I'm sorry, was the Baratie just not to your taste? Is that why you ditched it after you took it from us?! Pillows not fluffy enough for your shitbag leader?!"

Gin shuddered. "Nah, man… We'd still be there if we could… But we got slaughtered. Like a year after… We didn't even see it coming, it was just… These two guys. I guess they were friends of the old man or something, because when they saw he wasn't in charge, they went berserk. This guy with red hair and one arm and this… Other guy with just a bigass sword. They tore us apart, man. Only a few of us got out and we've been on the road ever since."

When he looked up to the other three, the room dropped 20 degrees. Not an ounce of sympathy to be found on any of their faces. "So, uh…"

"Isn't that _exactly_ what you did to Sanji?" Luffy asked.

"... Yeah, uh.. N-no, you know what? I don't know why you're all acting like that, I'm keeping you alive! You three are going to be fine after all this, nothing's gonna change for you!"

"Except for all of our friends being dead! My girlfriend's in there!" Luffy shouted.

Gin swallowed hard. "Well, uh… Maybe that'll teach you not to form attachments like that. They tend to end in disaster these days…"

If Luffy weren't bound up, he would've sprung off the bed and beat Gin senseless. He was, though, and he forgot, so he only ended up flopping forward onto his face. He laid there and grumbled incoherently, so Gin disregarded him and looked at Baby instead.

She had her legs crossed and was bouncing one knee impatiently. She huffed, muttered to herself. She briefly made eye contact with Gin, and then immediately looked away, bouncing on the bed. She was fidgeting like crazy. "What the hell's gotten into you?" He asked.

"OH! Do you mean besides zhe fact zhat all of my friends may be killed?" She grumbled, huffed again, and continued her little fidget dance. "I am going zhrough… how you say, wizhdrawal. It has been too long since my last cigarette and I am feeling zhe cravings and it is very annoying not being able to light up."

"... That's a shame," Gin said.

"Well, if you truly are interested in doing right by us, zhe least you could do is retrieve my pack and light one for me?"

He leaned on his chair's back legs. "I think you can just deal. We don't need the place reeking of cigarette smoke."

Baby put on a face that looked like… angry seduction. Aggressive flirting. "Are you sure? Perhaps I should tell you zhat I keep my cigarettes tucked away inside my bra~" She even stuck out her chest for emphasis.

That got him to drop all four legs of the chair onto the floor. He carefully considered his options here and decided there was no downside to getting up and walking toward her. He was smart enough to keep the gun half raised, sort of aimed somewhere in their general area. His free hand reached out, but before he could arrive at Grope City, Baby's hands flew out from behind her back, grabbing both his wrists and latching on with cobra-like strength.

"Wh-" he managed to gasp out before Baby brought her head back, and then slammed her forehead directly into his nose, breaking it instantly. He recoiled back, and before he could react, she wrenched the gun from his hand and pointed it at his face.

Gin threw his hands up in surrender, blood pouring from his nose. "Turn around. Hands behind your back," Baby commanded. He did as she told and soon found himself cuffed with the same cuffs that used to be on her. Then, for good measure, she kicked him in the back of the knee and brought his ass to the floor face-first.

"Hoooooooly shit…" Sanji said, impressed and more than a little turned on.

"That was so cool!" Luffy cheered.

Baby just shrugged. "Oh, zhe number of times I have been handcuffed on a bed, of course I would learn how to pick zhem! Especially zhese ones. Zhey are clearly not police cuffs. Zhey probably got zhem from a sex shop or somezhing."

Before long, all three of them were free and Gin was still on the ground, groaning. Sanji had the gun trained on him while Baby and Luffy tore the RV apart looking for the key to the ignition. "It's not here!" Luffy groaned, slamming one of the cupboard doors shut.

Sanji kicked Gin in the ribs. "Where's the keys, asshole?"

"Well I'm not telling you NOW!" Gin groaned. "And would you stop pointing that thing at me?! It's not even loaded!"

"Oh really? Then why'd you flinch when Baby pulled it on you?" Sanji raised the gun at a window and pulled the trigger. A shot rang out and shattered the glass. "Hah! You little shit, thought you could lie to me!"

"YO! GIN! YOU ALRIGHT IN THERE?! WE HEARD A GUNSHOT!" Came a voice from outside. "I'M COMIN' IN!"

Baby and Luffy both glared at Sanji for a second and then focused back on the door. "I'll handle this," Luffy said, rolling up his sleeves. He stepped in front of the RV's door and waited for it to swing in. The guy patrolling outside was not expecting to be greeted by one of their prisoners, so he didn't react quick enough to just blow Luffy away. Because the guy was on the ground, he was a few feet lower than Luffy, which meant he was at prime headkicking position. Luffy brought up his foot like a soccer player and practically punted a grown-ass man in the head, sending him flying backwards and landing flat on his back.

Luffy dove out of the RV and pounced on the guy. He grabbed him by the collar and shook him, yelling "TALK! WHERE DO YOU KEEP THE CAR KEYS?!"

"Luffy!" Baby called from the RV. "Zhat is not how you get answers!" She walked off the steps, scooped up the guy's dropped assault rifle, and aimed it at him. "You have to really intimidate zhem! TELL US WHAT WE WANT TO KNOW!"

The guy stammered and fumbled for words, which made both of them groan. "This guy's useless!" Luffy said. Frustrated, the two of them scanned the area for anything they could use. With one RV and the jeep gone, the circle of vehicles that made up their camp now consisted of two RVs, a station wagon, and Krieg's Eldorado. What it was really missing… was people. "Wait, where is everyone? Why aren't we being attacked?" Luffy asked.

"K-Krieg brought most of his guys… with him! W-we stayed behind to watch the camp…" the guy beneath Luffy choked out.

Luffy frowned. "You mean, we got stuck being guarded by the stragglers! That sucks!"

Baby bit her thumbnail. "Well, we were captured quite easily. Zhey must not zhink much of us… So. It is just you and Gin, zhen, hm?" She pointed the rifle at him to draw an answer out.

"N-no… No, it's not just the two of us… HELMEPPO, GET 'EM!" He yelled at the top of his lungs.

Both Luffy and Baby lifted their heads, scanning all around for any sign of attack. Nothing came after them, though. The guy called again, "H-... HELMEPPO, GET 'EM!" This time, something happened. A guy, presumably Helmeppo, poked his head out from behind the RV oppostite of the one they were held in.

"Oh! Caribou! W-were you calling me?"

Caribou glared at Helmeppo from his spot on the ground. "Y-! You idiot! Why'd you reveal yourself?! You could've taken them by surprise!"

Helmeppo stepped out into the open. "D-Don't call me an idiot! You're the one who let himself get captured!"

"I wouldn't have gotten caught if you were doing your Goddamn job and watching my back!"

"I had to _go_! You don't expect me to risk severe bladder damage for your sake, do you?!"

Baby and Luffy exchanged exasperated looks and Baby ended their little argument by opening fire on Helmeppo, so bullets would fly past his head. He squealed like a toddler and Baby yelled out "Enough of zhis buffoonery! You! Tell us where zhe keys are kept!"

"K-K-Krieg keeps a hold of 'em! W-We don't know where they are, th-that way no one can try to steal his- his car!" Helmeppo stammered.

At that moment, Sanji leaned out the RV door. His gun was still trained on Gin, but he looked to Luffy and Baby. "We all okay out here? I heard gunshots."

"Physically? We are fine. But in zhe long run? We are… ah, what is zhe expression? Up shit creek."

Luffy kicked at the guy he was standing over. "These idiots don't have any of the car keys! They're all with that Krieg guy! So he can protect his big stupid car!"

"Shit…" Sanji pondered for a second. "Wait. Hold on, I have an idea."

Three rifles went up at Law and Perona, and Krieg chuckled. "Looks like you two are first… All I gotta do is-"

That's when his walkie-talkie suddenly chirped to life. "Uh… Hey, Boss? You got a sec?"

Rolling his eyes dramatically, Krieg reached into his back pocket and pulled it out. "Gin! Now I am in the middle of some business here, so you had better have a DAMN good reason for interruptin' me! Now what can I do for you?"

"Hey, shitdick!" That wasn't Gin's voice. That was Sanji's. And boy did he sound chipper. "How's it going? Remember me?"

Krieg looked to his captives, and then to his henchmen. "... Would y'all pardon me for a moment? I think I need to take this." He stepped away and faced the wall, preventing the others from hearing him. "Now, I am to assume the reason I'm hearin' your voice is because y'all have decided to join us?"

Sanji laughed over the walkie-talkie. "Not exactly. See, I've got a gun pointed at the head of someone precious to you. I think you and I should talk about that."

It was Krieg's turn to laugh. He rubbed the tears from his eyes. "Boy, there ain't no one in that camp I'd qualify as 'precious to me'. Y'all are gonna have to try a little harder than that."

"Did I say someone? My bad. I meant some _thing_. Luffy, thump the hood, would ya?" There was a sudden banging, like someone pounding on the hood of a car, and Krieg felt his heart drop into his stomach.

"Alright, now, let's all be calm, son. Aheheh, let's uh… Not do somethin' some of us might regret, eh?"

"You might have already crossed that line, Krieg. I don't know what you've been up to, so here's how this is going to work. If any of my friends are dead, I am going to dismantle this car and there is not a damn thing you and your three flunkies can do about it." Sanji's tone was ice cold.

"Son, that car is worth more than a dozen men's lives. Scratching the _paint_ on it is a capital offense-"

"So is gunning down a bunch of people just trying to make it! So what's it gonna be, Krieg?"

Krieg muttered and grumbled to himself. As far as he knew, there was just a lot of blind cover fire being exchanged… The only casualties _he_ saw were his own men, which he thought was quite unfair.

He pulled away from the walkie-talkie. "HEY! YOU TWO!" He turned his head back toward Law and Perona. "COULD Y'ALL CONFIRM TO YOUR FRIEND HERE THAT Y'AIN'T HURT?"

"... Whhhaat?" Law said.

"Your friend! Sanji! He's ah, he's callin' to make sure y'all are okay!"

Something had Krieg nervous. Neither Law nor Perona knew what it could be, but Perona knew how to make it worse. She sucked in a breath, bit her lower lip, and wailed out "OH IT HURTS! IT HUUUURTS! LAW, I'M DYING! I-I CAN'T BREATHE, IT HURTS SO BADLY! I TH-THINK HE PIERCED MY LUNG! I-I'm ch-choking on blood… Blech… Ech… I-I always… Loved… y-you… Law… Bleeggghhh…"

Krieg swallowed so hard it was audible and he laughed into the walkie-talkie. "Ah, th-that there was just a joke, son. Just a bit a' humor, th-that's all it was! R-right? A good laugh!"

Perona let out another dramatic death rattle and Krieg felt the sweat drip from his brow down to his chin.

"That's one of them. What about the others?" Sanji asked.

"W-... Well, shoot, boy, do you want me to round up everyone and get 'em to sound off?!"

Sanji shrugged and said, as nonchalantly as possible, "If that's too much work, then my friend here will be happy to go to town on the car with a crowbar."

"I'LL DO IT MAN, I'M CRAZY!" Luffy shouted. He had a crowbar raised above his head, ready to bring it down on a headlight.

"N-now now now, let's ah, let's not do anything hasty, eh… Give me a moment to discuss this situation with my ah… Companions here."

The radio went silent and Luffy looked to Sanji with the crowbar still raised. "Is it working?"

"I have no idea. This is such a long shot, I don't know what to expect next. I'm mostly just stalling." Sanji had sent Baby on the walk to retrieve the van they drove all this way in. The keys to that were at least still on the front seat, but she still had to walk all that way. Right now, Sanji's entire hopes rested on A) the idea that his friends were still okay, and B) that Krieg cared about his car as much as he claimed to. If either of those things ended up being false, then the three of them were screwed in multiple ways.

So while Sanji was cool on the outside, he was glad Krieg couldn't see him sweating. He spoke into the walkie-talkie again. "So what's the verdict?"

"N-now hold your horses, boy!" Krieg snapped. "We are still deliberatin'!" He was huddled in with Monet and Vergo, whispering back and forth about the situation.

With their backs turned to Law and Perona, no one was really watching them. This came in handy when they heard a soft tapping on the doorwall and turned around to see Robin on the other side of the glass. She quietly slid the door open and let the duo in, leaving the three of them outside to deliberate further.

"What's going on? What are they doing?" Robin whispered.

"I don't know, I think Sanji's on the other end of their walkie-talkie. He's trying to get them to let us go, I think." Law said.

Robin let out a sigh of relief. "Well, at least they're okay… I think we might be doomed, though."

"... Why's that?" Perona asked.

Robin gestured to the front of the house with her head.

Back outside, Krieg was ready to break the huddle. "Alright! So here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna play along with the brat. We're gonna go round up all his little friends, make nice, tell them we're sorry, all the works. Then, once they've all sounded off… We open fire. Kill 'em all. Then we drive back to the camp, kill those three… And maybe kill Gin for screwin' up so bad. There, easy!"

"And this'll work?" Monet asked. "Because we haven't had much luck so far."

"That's because they're all hidin'! Once we draw 'em out, they'll be in the open! Nowhere to run! All we gotta do is disarm 'em. Charm 'em into comin' out!"

Monet nodded, understanding. "Charm them. Got it." She crossed her arms and gripped the bottom of her tank top, starting to lift it over her head.

Krieg grabbed her hands before she could pull her top off. "I was gonna suggest we just get ol' Sanji to call 'em out, but uh… Y'know what, keep that idea on standby." He lifted his head up and saw the back porch was completely empty now. "Wh- Aw son of a bitch! They gave us the slip!" He muttered some profanity under his breath. "Ahh well, we'll get 'em soon enough. C'mon, let's go round up the boys an' tell 'em the new plan."

He clicked the walkie-talkie as the trio ambled across the backyard. "Alright, Sanji, you win. I'm gonna get all your little friends to sound off and then we'll be square. Now you just make sure that there car ain't sufferin'!"

"You got it," Sanji said. Luffy's eyes widened in surprise.

"Whoa, did it work!? We pulled it off!"

"Nope. I don't trust him one bit. I'm just playing along until…" at that moment, the van appeared on the road and Baby waved out the window.

"ALLO!"

"She shows up. Let's roll."

As Krieg rounded the corner, he clicked into the walkie-talkie again. "Now, to make this easier on us all, why don't you give me a list of everyone's name? That way I can… show them that I mean… uh…" he trailed off as the cul-de-sac's street came into view. There had to be hundreds of them. Bouncing off each other like marbles being poured into a bathtub, rotted walking corpses pouring through the opened gate. The RV and jeep were surrounded, and it was pretty clear that any of Krieg's men that were left out there were now zombie chow.

Krieg let out a dark chuckle, running his hand through his hair. "Well, ain't that a fine mess? Aahhh, it figures, don't it? Just my fuckin' luck." He brought the walkie-talkie to his mouth. "Well, son, I got some good news and some bad news. The ah, good news is you don't gotta worry about my men shootin' yours up. The bad news, well… Just take a listen for yerself." He held out the device, pointing it toward the snarling horde that were flooding the street.

Sanji, Baby, and Luffy all felt their blood freeze.

"So at this point, I don't even want yer damn town! Now if you'll excuse me, I gotta figure out a way to get my ass outta here. So long, Sanji! Better luck next time…"

"Krieg! KRIEG!" Sanji yelled into the device.

"Oh no…" Baby felt the tears welling up and her face burned hot with dread. "Oh no… Z-zhere were so many of zhem…"

"We gotta hurry. This place has to have weapons and junk, right?! Come on! We gotta get over there and save 'em for real!" Luffy shouted. Before the others could agree, he was already bursting into the RV. He pointed at the trio sitting on the floor. Not only were they all handcuffed, their cuffs were looped through one another, making it even harder to escape. "HEY! WHERE ARE THE GUNS!?"

"Fuck you, I'm not telling you-" Gin started before Helmeppo cut him off.

"In the other RV, in the cabinets!"

"Awesome! Thanks!" Luffy bounded back out and shouted for Sanji and Baby to follow him.

"Dude! What the hell?!" Gin said.

Helmeppo shrugged, "H-hey, I'm not putting up a fight anymore! Those guys are nuts!"

The van was haphazardly loaded up with anything they could grab in one armful. No time for multiple trips, just a bunch of pistols, hunting rifles, boxes of ammo, even two flare guns. Luffy kept a hold of the crowbar he was threatening the Eldorado with and Baby strapped herself with as many hunting knives with as many holsters as she could find. Sanji hopped behind the steering wheel of the van and floored it.

As they tore down the highway, he realized he'd rather be facing the zombies than Krieg anyway.


	17. Chapter 16

Chapter 16: Sometime slightly before the end of Chapter 15

Vivi wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and got up to splash cold water on her face. You'd think after six years of this, you'd get used to the concept of death and dying, but then you see a man's skull cap explode and everything old is new again. At least the gunfire seemed to die down, but then again, that could have been good or terrible. Most things in her life were either good or terrible.

She stepped outside of the bathroom. In the kitchen, Bonney was wrapping bandages around Nami's leg, since Law was apparently _too busy_ to be a real doctor, that lazy ass. Half of Zoro's head was also bandaged up to keep his injury from bleeding everywhere. He and Coby were standing near the window, carefully peeking out while remaining hidden.

Coby glanced over at Zoro. "Hey do you think maybe you should sit down…? You're hurt pretty bad."

"What, this?" Zoro pointed to his face. "Nah, the cut's real shallow. Wounds to the forehead just bleed a lot because the skin is thin. I'm good."

"If you say so." Coby turned back to the window and let out a truly anguished sigh. "Oh no… Are you kidding? We don't need that too!"

"What is it? Did they roll out a tank or something?" Nami asked from the kitchen.

"Nnnnope. Much worse than that," Zoro said.

The girls made their way to the front room, Nami hobbling on one good leg and using Bonney for support. When they got a good clean look out the window, Nami and Bonney swore and Vivi gasped. The undead were just starting to funnel in through the hole where there used to be a gate. Dozens were already past the wall and making a beeline for the fresh food that was Krieg's men. They fired off a few courtesy shots, but they were quickly overwhelmed. The five inside Zoro and Bonney's house flinched in disgust as rotted teeth sank into flesh.

"We really should do something…" Coby muttered.

"On it!" Bonney said. She walked away from the window and over to the love seat. She dragged it toward the door and propped it up in front, then reached over and flipped the deadbolt. "There we go!"

Coby sighed. "Not what I had in mind, but I guess that's still technically correct…"

"It's a start," Nami said. "What do we do when they're done eating those guys. They had the guns and stuff to spare, we barely have anything. They're gonna be clawing at the door eventually."

"And they just keep coming!" Vivi whined. They were filling up the space inside the walls like a swarm of cartoon termites that devour everything in sight.

"Two weeks. We didn't even make it two weeks on our own before we all fucking died," Nami said.

Meanwhile, Krieg and his Amazing Friends quickly realized the only safe place in the outpost was on the balcony. They doubled back through Franky's backyard and scaled the nearest ladder, circling around back to the gate where they could watch the horde pour in, dumbly following after one another. Only a few of the zombies actually noticed there was food right above them, and any that made a futile swipe was eventually pushed away by the rest of the horde.

"Well, we're safe f'r now, but I gotta tell ya, this is real upsettin'!" Krieg huffed. "We'd been watchin' these idjits for days, preppin' an attack like this and now we're gonna have t' go gather up more men and more guns and more cars. This does not fit in with my plans at all. Ah well… Less mouths t' feed for now…"

"Hey speaking of plans?" Monet said, sitting on the edge of the balcony and dangling her legs, just out of reach of any zombie's grip. "How are we gonna get out of here?"

Krieg nodded slowly. "That is a good question and I will get back t' ya on that."

Meanwhile again, Robin, Franky, Law, and Perona were gathered around Franky's front window and watching the carnage unfold.

"It's serene in a way, don't you think?" Robin said. "All of them moving like one giant engine…"

"It'd be even more serene if they weren't here to devour us," Law said.

Robin smiled a little. "Eat _you_ , maybe. They ignore me, remember?"

Perona's eyes widened, which was impressive considering they were always wide open. "WAIT! YOU'RE IMMUNE!"

"That's right," Robin said, nodding a little condescendingly. "What's your point?"

"You can go out there! And you can go get all the good stuff from the storage house! Like all the guns and the grenade launcher and stuff!" Perona yelped.

Law and Franky looked from Perona to Robin in disbelief. "Did… Perona come up with a plan before the rest of us did?"

Robin shrugged nonchalantly. "No, I always planned on doing just that. I was just wondering if anyone else would pick up on it." She walked away from the others. "I'll be right back, I'm going to go save everyone now." She opened the front door, kept her eyes on everyone else, and stepped outside with a graceful faux ballerina twirl.

Outside it was even more horrific and she had to stand on the front porch for a second to adjust to the sound. Besides the snarling and snapping of weak jaws, there was also the grotesque squishing of rotted flesh pressing against itself, or against the concrete or the walls. And let's not even talk about the smell.

She stepped off the front porch and walked down the driveway. The zombies were starting to spread out, filling the sidewalk instead of staying contained on the street. They hadn't caught scent or sight of the others secure in their houses and Robin hoped it could stay that way. She easily slipped between the zombies. They regarded her about as much as they did a road sign or a fire hydrant. Occasionally one would bump into her, but it would just stumble and continue on.

Up on the balcony, the shit trio watched in amazement. "How the hell is she doing that?!" Monet asked.

"I got no clear idea. They ain't even lookin' at her!" Krieg said, rubbing his chin. "And she ain't even wearin' one o' them guts tarps…"

Monet looked straight down at the crowd, swinging her feet. "I wonder if we could pull that off here…"

Krieg's face lit up. "Now that is an idea! Why don't you go on an' hop down there, gut one o' them an' try it f'r yourself?" He put his hand on her shoulder a little more roughly than she felt exactly comfortable with. Gave her a little shove too, just enough to make it seem like he was either just being boistrous… Or maybe he intended to volunteer her for gutting duty by shoving her off. She gripped the edge of the balcony tighter anyway.

Robin slipped into the storage house and slammed the door behind her. The zombies were spreading out now, trampling over front lawns and some stumbling up to the stairs on front porches. They weren't really aiming for anyone just yet… But it was a matter of time. She needed to work fast.

She shuffled down the basement stairs and flipped on the lights. The floor was lined with racks where the weapons were lined up. There was no need to organize or keep track of ammo, there were only twelve of them and they couldn't really go anywhere. It was frustrating now, since she couldn't remember where they put the rocket launcher. While she walked down the aisles, she holstered a pistol in the back of her jeans, because that's the safest place you can keep a gun.

When she finally found it, she handled it with care. Hancock didn't leave them with a lot of grenades, but she really only needed one. She'd never fired one before, but she figured as long as it was pointed away from her, she'd be fine.

She made her way back upstairs right around the same time a van turned onto the street leading to Little Garden. The last stragglers of the horde were filtering in, creating a wall of flesh that the van was not equipped to penetrate. God, I'm sorry about that, that sounded worse than I wanted it to.

Sanji parked the van a fair distance away from the gate and jumped out of the driver's side door. "God, look at that shit!" Rifle across his back, he climbed onto the hood, then onto the roof of the car. "KRIEG! IF YOU'RE ALIVE, I'M GONNA KILL YOU, YOU SACK OF SHIT!"

Krieg ducked down behind the wall. "Hm. Reckon we'll stay quiet f'r a little bit, see how this plays out…"

From the roof of the van, Sanji sprayed bullets into the backs of the zombies still milling around the gate. Several of them went down, but even more were drawn to the loud sounds and turned around. A dozen or so broke away from the group and shambled toward the new, more open target.

"No fair!" Luffy said, sliding out of the van with a crowbar in hand. Oh, he wasn't indignant at the zombies approaching him. "Sanji, you're taking all the kills! Come on, I need to get some hits in!" Two shamblers made it past Sanji and lunged for Luffy. He swung the crowbar down and pierced the skull of one, but found it stuck fast when he tried to pull it out. The body went limp and took the crowbar down with it.

The other zombie took advantage of Luffy's situation and pounced on him. Its jaws came close enough to Luffy's face that he could see its tongue through the hole in its chin, but before it could bite down, Baby appeared from the van's door and plunged a knife in its ear. The monster went down and Luffy took a step back to catch his balance.

Baby smiled at him from the door and hopped down onto the pavement. "Knives, dear," she said, handing him one from the harness strapped to her thigh. "Zhey will not get stuck like zhat crowbar."

The two of them could easily deal with the stragglers that broke off from the greater horde. Sanji drew them away two or three at a time with the gunfire, downing even more in the process. Every time Luffy put one down, he quietly counted along. "1,598… 1,599… 1,600!"

Baby giggled slyly, putting down one herself with a smug cry of " _2,889…_ " which made Luffy shoot her such a dirty look.

They weren't doing much more than chipping away at the back end. The true terror was already inside, but the van wasn't equipped to start plowing through corpses. If Sanji tried to ram it, they'd just get trapped and surrounded and needing rescue themselves. They needed to take care of a bunch in one go.

Which is what Robin did next. She took aim with the grenade launcher, pointing in the general area of the concentrated cluster that had gathered around the RV in order to devour Krieg's men. She pulled the trigger, sending the stock into her shoulder, which hurt more than she expected. It's true, she wasn't familiar with using a grenade launcher, but she figured as long as it was pointed away from her and toward the zombies, she was good. The grenade shot out faster and further than she expected, slamming into the side of the RV with a THUNK. Then came the crack of the explosion, which turned 24 zombies into chunks. The RV rocked and it looked for a moment that it would tip over, but it righted itself before it could go over, albeit with an absolutely fucked up right side. It had become the reverse Two-Face of cars. (Because Two-Face's left side is the fucked up one.)

Robin, unaccustomed to causing that level of carnage, or really any level of carnage, raised her arms up in triumph and let out a "Whoo! 42 points!" Because two of the zombies were very clearly firemen. Unfortunately, this drew attention and she had to quickly scatter back inside the safety of the storage house.

"That was it?!" Perona squeaked. "The car didn't even go up in a big fireball!"

Franky shrugged. "Sorry, kiddo. Life ain't like the movies and the video games. Now come on, we're gonna drive my custom-made anti-zombie jeep through the horde to try and drive some of 'em off." He ambled his weirdo ass toward the garage and Law stared at his back of his head like there was a purple gopher strapped to it.

"We're gonna do WHAT?!" He cried out. Franky pivoted on one heel, smiling proudly.

"It's literally the safest place we can be! It's super zombie-proof! We're safer in there than we are in the house, trust me!"

"Trusting you is what I'm afraid of…" Law said. Reluctantly, he and Perona joined Franky in the garage, climbing into the Frankystein and sitting in the backseat while Franky situated himself in the front. "So how exactly are we doing this?"

"Super simple! We're gonna Pied Piper 'em into following us! All we need is to make a lot of loud, annoying noises to draw their attention!" Franky said, adjusting the mirror.

Law gave Perona a pointed look. She gave him a confused and offended expression, and he responded by raising his eyebrow. This conversation of facial expressions continued for a while until Perona huffed and shot a look toward the back of Franky's head. "Franky! I'm _not_ loud and annoying, am I?!"

Franky pressed the garage door opener attached to the visor. "I love ya like a daughter, P, so I'm not gonna answer that. Both of you start shouting once we're out there!" He flipped his sunglasses down and flashed his teeth to the mirror.

Franky pulled out of the driveway. He immediately pressed the horn. _La Cucaracha_ blared from the Frankystein, creating a cacophony that only those incapable of sentient thought would be drawn to. Additionally, Perona leaned around the back of her seat and started shouting her lungs out. "HEY! OVER HERE, ZOMBIES! COME ON! I'M A CUTE HELPLESS HORROR MOVIE PROTAGONIST! I'M TOTALLY GONNA BREAK THE HEEL OF MY SHOE RUNNING FROM YOU! LOOK AT HOW PRETTY AND DEFENSELESS I AM!"

They drew a pretty sizeable crowd. 51 to be exact, which, of course, they didn't _count_ them, but you're the reader so you're allowed to know these sorts of things. For the record, there were 449 zombies left within the confines of Little Garden's walls, so… imagine that pounding at the doors.

The five in Zoro and Bonney's house didn't have to imagine that, they were living it. From the doorwall, Zoro casually called to the others, "Hey, they're starting to spread to the backyard. So uh… We're gonna be trapped soon."

Nami whined in her chair. "I'm already trapped! If they get in here, how the hell am I supposed to defend myself?! I can't even walk!"

"Yeah… That's gonna be a problem.. Grenade launcher didn't work the way we all kinda wanted it to…" Zoro said. He was taking all of this really well, or at least he seemed to be. The truth is, he was looking for a reason to run out there and start cutting fools up. "If there were less of 'em out there, I'd feel better about your chances. Maybe… I should go out there and start cutting fools up."

"That's the worst idea I've ever heard!" Bonney shrieked.

Vivi nodded. "Yeah, I mean… Getting yourself killed isn't going to help anyone.

"Then I won't get killed," Zoro said, as if it were as easy as that. "But Robin's the only one with access to our weapons and immunity or not, she's not gonna be able to save our asses if she's pinned down in there. Bonney, you can cover me." He put his hand on the doorwall handle.

"Oh _can_ I?! How _generous_ of you!" Bonney sneered. Her expression dissolved into panic when he slid the doorwall open. "WAIT YOU DUMBASS!" But he was gone and Bonney had no choice but to chase after him. "YOU PILE OF FUCKING PENISES, I'M GOING TO STAB GLASS IN YOUR GOOD EYE FOR THIS!"

Nami, Vivi, and Coby were basically pinned down with very little in the way of weapons at this point. None of them had ever felt quite so tense. "Y'know, now would be a really good time for my boyfriend to suddenly show up and save me..." Nami said.

"Honey, do they have any, uh… knives or anything in the house…?" Vivi asked her husband.

On the bright side, Franky's plan was working pretty well. The Frankystein was sturdy enough to drive through the lake of zombies. They managed to clear the gate with the cluster behind them. As they passed by Krieg's jeep, Franky noted the minigun mounted to it. "Soon, friend…"

For the first time since they arrived, Luffy, Sanji, and Baby saw actual proof that Little Garden had survived. Granted, Baby and Luffy scrambled back inside the van and slammed the door shut when they saw the Frankystein was leading the most morbid parade since the 1997 Macy's Day Parade, when Barney deflated and melted and the Cat in the Hat ran into a lamppost and put a woman in a coma. Look it up.

Franky pulled up alongside the van and looked up at Sanji. "Hey! You made it! You're actually still alive!"

"I could say the same about you, man! Are the others okay?!" Sanji called back.

Franky was happy to say "Yeah! As far as I know! They're holed up in the youngsters' house, last I checked! All except Robin, she made it to the storage house."

"So Nami's okay?! That's good…" Luffy said, popping into sight from the driver side window. A zombie made a swipe at him. He quickly put it down by ramming his knife into its eye socket without looking away from Franky or breaking his smile.

Franky grinned at the kid. "I'll bet she's waiting for you to be a big damn hero, kid. Go get 'er!"

With that, Franky drove off, honking his horn and letting Perona continue her zombie calling. All Law did was wave from his seat and call out, "Good luck! I hope some of you make it out of there!" Which prompted Perona to punch him in the arm as hard as she could.

Inside the storage house, Robin was carefully considering how to go about weapon distribution. It would be rather undignified to grab as much as she could and carry them out like she was a cartoon character carrying a stack of fragile china and trying not to trip. Perhaps she could put them in a pillowcase or one of those industrial garbage bags… No, that wouldn't work. If she was going to be Gun Santa, she'd need the red hat and the Santa outfit was somewhere in the attic. She didn't have a choice. She started strapping pistol holsters everywhere they could fit. Two on her belt, on her shoulders, on her thighs. Then she slung two assault rifles over her shoulders. It was rather uncomfortable and bulky, but it at least looked better than the alternative. Oh yes, and ammo. She had that in an ammo bag at her lower back. She felt like the most dangerous pack mule in history.

She intentionally avoided mirrors as she made her way back upstairs and slid out the back door. There were zombies crawling around the backyard. Not nearly as concentrated as they were out front, but enough that she found it distasteful. She swung one assault rifle up and looked down the sights. It was going to be a long walk to Zoro's house at this rate. "886," she muttered under her breath, pulling the trigger and watching a head burst open.


	18. Chapter 17

Chapter 17: Immediately after Chapter 16

Bonney caught up with Zoro just as he was crossing into Robin and Baby's backyard. She shoved him in the back after he finished beheading another zombie, both of his swords drawn and covered in sticky blood already. "You fucker! You totally just ditched all of us! What the shit, dude?!"

Zoro recovered from the push and flicked the blood off of his swords. Well, some of it at least. "I didn't ditch you. I was drawing them away. See?" He gestured toward the zombies around the area that had started following him. Two were closer than the others, within grabbing range.

Bonney scoffed and reached for her pistol, only to find it absent from the back of her shorts, where she had tucked it earlier. "Wh- Aw shit!"

It was up to Zoro to sigh and step between her and the zombies. He made short work of them while Bonney fidgeted, suddenly feeling _quite_ vulnerable without a weapon at her side.

"Missing a gun?" Came Robin's voice. Bonney whirled 180 degrees to see Robin standing there, decked out like an FPS protagonist. In her indignant anger towards Zoro, Bonney had completely failed to notice Robin standing there. "Here, take the other rifle." She handed off the gun, significantly reducing her burden. Bonney took it gladly. The backyards were slowly filling more and more as the zombies spread out in search of fresh food.

Bonney fired off a few shots, dropping three zombies off in the distance. "Yeah! That's a good idea!" She and Robin heard Zoro say. He had backtracked to the strip of lawn between Robin's house and his house, where the zombies were filtering in from. "Keep drawing them over here so we can take out even more!"

That was the trouble with using guns, of course. You drew attention. It was clear that more zombies were drawn to this particular backyard, coming from the side yards on either side of Robin's house.

"Oh, well damn. This isn't very convenient," Robin said, bringing the rifle up again.

438 and counting.

Back at the Roronoa/Jewelry homestead, Coby was coming up blank on the weapons situation. He was stuck sorting through the kitchen, looking for knives in the drawers. "How can people as messed up as Zoro and Bonney not have ANY weapons?!"

Scowling, Vivi crossed her arms and said "Because Zoro just likes his swords. He's a bushido man. And it's not fair Nami gets the only gun available!"

Nami was holding Bonney's left behind gun, checking the clip to see how many shots were left. "It's hella fair. I can't run away or reach a zombie's head like this. You two can still fight better than me."

Coby handed Vivi a chef's knife and held one in his hand from the same set. She regarded it with some disdain. "These are their nice kitchen knives, we can't use these!"

"Sweetie, I doubt they do a lot of cooking anyway. It'll be fine, besides this is life and death here."

It was around then that the glass at the front window cracked and shattered from the weight of the zombies pressed against it.

"BOY, SURE AM GLAD BONNEY BRACED THE FRONT DOOR!" Nami shouted as the undead started literally falling through the gap.

Time to check in on Luffy and friends! After Franky had led a chunk of zombies away, the gateway was just a little more clear and they were able to inch closer inside. Luffy and Sanji swapped places, with Luffy sitting on the roof of the car and Sanji behind the wheel. This was done at Luffy's insistence after he caught sight of the minigun mounted on the jeep. "Get me to that!" He demanded. "Get me to that so I can use it!"

Baby was in the passenger seat with the window rolled down. She was leaning out the window and making it a little easier to navigate by opening fire with a pump action shotgun. After a few shots turned a handful of zombies to goo, she leaned back in. "Is zhis why zhey call it 'shotgun' when you want to sit in zhe passenger seat?" She chirped.

"I'm not sure, actually…" Sanji said. Their train of thought was interrupted when the van started rocking, being shoved against by swarming undead.

From the roof, Luffy yelled down "HEY! KEEP IT STEADY!" He struggled to keep his balance. The jeep was only a few yards away. If he really believed in himself, he could probably jump to it. Granted, that would mean abandoning his friends… But he couldn't do much for them up there anyway. He waited until the van was relatively steady and then took the most faith-filled leap he could manage.

He landed in the back of the jeep, almost losing his balance and falling right into the sea of chompy-bits. With a bit of dramatic flailing, he kept his balance up. "Whew! Almost bit it there. Wait, no, they would've bit _me_. Heh! Hahahaha!"

When he stopped finding his own joke amusing, he grabbed the grips of the minigun and tested how well it pivoted. He could turn it a good amount and could aim it downward enough to clear out anything in his way. He obviously couldn't shoot behind him, but there were enough in front that he could still deal some damage.

He gripped the trigger, braced himself for the recoil, and opened fire. Now, Luffy was not much for guns in the first place, and this was a weapon designed to chew through cover, so it absolutely had a kick to it. The kind that sent his aim going every which way. Fortunately, again, this thing was designed to chew through cover, and there were zombies everywhere. It didn't quite matter where he aimed.

Luffy bounced up and down, feeling his teeth chatter for a good fifteen seconds before the gun suddenly stopped firing. It let out a few pathetic clicks and it dawned on Luffy that it was empty. "A-awww! What a ripoff, that's all I get?!"

387 left

"Was that the minigun?!" Bonney shrieked. "Aw man, are some of those assholes still alive?!" Zoro cleared out enough to peek down the side yard to see the situation out front.

"Oh hey, that's Luffy on the minigun. The cook and Baby must've made it back," he told them. "But uh… Looks like they're getting kinda swarmed.

Robin let out an exasperated sigh. "Really? I was kind of hoping they would be here to save _us_." She handed Bonney another pistol and unloaded her rifle onto Zoro. "Here, let me grab your third sword," she told him.

Bonney snorted behind them. "Yes, yes, I realized it as soon as I said it," Robin said as she pulled Zoro's katana from the sheathe. "I'll be right back, I'm going to go save them," in the same manner someone would announce they had to go to the library or else they'd get a late charge.

To her, it was more an inconvenience than anything. Once she cleared out of the backyard, and therefore the source of all the gunfire, the zombies went back to leaving her alone. They had no self awareness or object permanence. She snuck through the side yard, weaving through the undead as they lumbered toward the sound of Bonney's gunfire.

Luffy, Sanji, and Baby didn't really need _saving_ as it were. Luffy was elevated in the back of the jeep and if any grabby hands got a little too close for comfort, he could crouch down and end them with a knife to the brain. The same went for Sanji and Baby, in the front seats of the van with the windows half rolled down, one by one dropping zombies that had the gall to reach inside.

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Robin approached Luffy first and held up a finger to her lips to keep him from calling out. She swung the sword to clear an opening to the jeep and climbed inside along with him. "Hello, Luffy. Day treating you well?"

"Kinda! I like getting to kill all these zombies, but… Kinda worried about how everyone else is doing…" he told her, bringing the knife down into a zombie's ear canal.

"Ah, well, let's see… Zoro and Bonney are in my backyard fending for themselves. You can hear them, can't you?" Robin said. She pointed to her house and the sound of automatic gunfire emanated from it. "Last I saw, Franky, Law, and Perona were at his house…"

"Actually they just left, they were leading a buncha zombies out of town in the Frankystein!" Luffy corrected her.

"Thank you for the status update. And as for Nami, Vivi, and Coby, they are safe and sound at Zoro and Boney's… house…" she trailed off as she turned to gesture at their place and saw the zombies fumbling their way inside through the broken front window.

Both Luffy and Robin stared, jaws slack, in silent horror.

"Get out of the way!" Nami barked, gesturing wildly for Vivi and Coby to clear out of her line of sight. She raised the pistol and fired off, counting every shot as it made contact. "One! Two! Three!" Every shot connected as a zombie was halfway through the window, causing their body to collapse on the windowsill. This made it just slightly harder for another zombie to climb in, now having to climb over a fallen comrade as well. "Four! Five! Six! Seven!" The entire windowsill was was covered up by zombie corpses, but it wasn't enough to completely stop the flow. "Eight! Nine! Ten! Eleven!" She stopped firing and took a deep breath.

"Nice work, Nami! What comes next?!" Vivi cheered, looking to her in expectation.

"Uh. That's it for me. I'm outta bullets. You two get to shine now." She looked embarrassed.

Coby and Vivi looked from Nami, to each other, to the hole in the wall, where zombies were using their rotted minds to figure out how to climb through the window. They both advanced, with some hesitation. Zombies fell through the opening and they were easy enough to dispose of before they could manage to get back to their feet. However, this put the couple too close to the window, and thus the range of grabbing hands, for their comfort.

Vivi hated this. She hated everything about it. To her, zombies were worse than fire or natural disasters. Those could come out of nowhere and wipe out everything in their path. But zombies were different. Everyone a zombie killed didn't just decrease the human population, it added to the number of zombies. If a tornado could level up and grow stronger based on its killstreak, we as a society would have just given up by now.

364

Every zombie in front of her had, at one point, been like her. They had struggled to survive, and at some point, that struggle ran out and they ended up very briefly dead. It had always bothered her, just as she knew it bothered Coby. But now was not the time for her weird pity.

"Y'know what, Coby?!" She yelled, kicking a zombie in the knee so it would stumble down and she could more easily stab it in the brain.

"Wh-what?" Coby struggled against a grappling zombie and shoved it away.

"Ever since we got here, we've been attacked and shot at and threatened and spied on and now THIS!? It's like everyone in the world wants us OUT OF HERE!"

"Sweetie, I really don't-yikes!" He nimbly spun away from a lunging bite and plunged his knife in the back of its head. "Think this a good time to talk?"

"Well-! Well, FFFFUCK THEM!" Hey if everyone else was going to toss the word around, why not her?! "They don't get to kick us out! W-we're stronger than that! I'm not afraid of these things!" Actually she was terrified, but maybe if she shouted loud enough, she could trick herself into thinking otherwise.

It worked on Coby at least. He stared at her like she radiated pure golden light. Pure golden light with a spattering of blood and sweat, but still. At once, he fell in love with her all over again. "Y-yeah! Yeah, fuck them!" Fuck these zombies!"

"The zombies and these raiders and everyone trying to chase us out! We kept trying to convince ourselves that we weren't set for this world but-!" She punctuated her statement by bringing her knife up through a zombie's nose. It was a bit more fresh than the others, so when its skull cracked open, she was sprayed with blood. "This is our home! We're not going ANYWHERE!"

"Who the hell do they-NGH!" Coby grunted as he wrenched the knife out of a zombie's throat. Its head toppled backwards as the body collapsed. "Think they are, huh?! They can't tell us what to do! They aren't even alive!"

"I've been stuck in this stupid world for six years now! Since I was twelve! And now that I've got something really good here?! Something _really_ good on the horizon?! I'M NOT LETTING A BUNCH OF ZOMBIE JERKWADS RUIN THAT FOR ME!"

Coby and Vivi were not violent people by nature, but all that meant was the anger built up over time. Oh sure, they'd have little arguments or they'd stand up for themselves or they'd defend themselves from zombies, but they had never just unloaded. But Vivi had inspired something in Coby just now, and in turn, inspired something in herself. And they. Went. Crazy. Six years of pent-up aggression being let out like a pressure washer against a grimy sidewalk. Blood, eyeballs, intestines, and teeth went flying and made a real good mess of Zoro and Bonney's front room.

There was a momentary lull in the action when the stack of bodies in the windowsill kept more zombies from filtering in as quickly. Of course, the pile wouldn't hold and eventually they'd just push through, but the living could at least catch their breath.

328

Nami clapped her hands and smiled at the two of them, spattered with gore and grease and brain matter. "Look at you two~! You're turning into little psychopaths just like the rest of us!" She said in an oh-so-cutesy voice.

Coby laughed uneasily. "Th-... Thanks, Nami…?" He looked to Vivi. "Hey, what did you mean when you said something really good on the horizon?"

Vivi wiped her blood-streaked face on her slightly less blood-streaked shirt sleeve. "O-oh. Uh. Yeah, I was… gonna tell you later, but… I think… There's a chance… I might be pregnant."

Back outside, Robin had to hold Luffy in a death grip to keep him from flinging himself off the jeep in order to get to Nami. "Luffy! Think!" She said, fully accepting the irony of such a request. She grappled with him like a person trying to give a bath to a cat.

"There's no time for thinking! I gotta get in there and save Nami before she ends up dead!"

"I know that, but you won't do any good if _you_ end up dead too! You being dead will not make Nami happy!"

"But I gotta do SOMETHING!"

"Yes, I agree. So stick with me and we'll walk through the zombies and keep them from sniffing us out," she said as deliberately as possible, so he could understand. When she felt he was no longer trying to rush ahead, she turned towards the van. "Will you two be alright by yourselves if I take Luffy?"

"Yeah we're good here!" Sanji's voice came from the front seat. She could see him reach out to stab another zombie, adding to the pile building up in front of his door.

"Just do not forget about us!" Baby said over the sound of shotgun fire.

302

While Luffy and Robin began cutting a silent and bloody path toward Nami, Vivi, and Coby, Bonney and Zoro were clearing their way across the backyards to their house. The lawn was littered with gore, and Bonney briefly pondered if it would kill the grass. Zoro shrugged. "Nah, it's… Fertilizer. It's good for it. That's how it works."

They cleared out the lollygaggers in their backyard and climbed up the steps onto their deck. Bonney peered through the back door and saw the front room through the hallway. "Holy shit! They're still alive, and they totally fuckin' turned our house into a butcher shop."

"Hell yes," Zoro said, his eyebrow raised. Actually, both of them were raised but no one could see it. He stood guard on the porch while Bonney threw the door open.

"Yo! You all still fuckin' alive in here?!" She called out, stepping inside.

Coby and Vivi were chittering about something she couldn't hear, and Vivi turned to look at Bonney like she was Santa on Christmas morning. "Bonney!" She chirped. She quickly glanced at Coby, "We'll talk about this later,"

"Wh-!" Coby stammered.

"You can't just pull that!" Nami said.

Ignoring the glares from her husband and best friend, Vivi sparkled at Bonney some more. "I'm so glad you're still alive. Sorry about the mess. Is Zoro with you?"

"Dude, do not even fucking worry about the mess. You guys are rad as shit. Let's just keep stomping bitches," she said, nodding to the zombies pressing themselves against the corpses of their fallen brethren in order to get to the tasty flesh inside. She pivoted around to face the back door. "YO! CYCLOPS! GET THE FUCK IN HERE! IT'S BIG FUCKIN' LAST STAND TIME!"

As Bonney reloaded her rifle and tossed a fresh clip to Nami, Nami told her "Y'know, Zoro isn't missing an eye. He still has both of them. He's just blind in one. He's not… really a cyclops."

"What?" Bonney said, confused. "Cyclops has two eyes."

"Nnnoooo? Bonney, do you… know what a cyclops is?"

"Uh, duh? He's an X-Man. Shoots energy beams from his eyes? Him and Zoro are both charmless pricks with no sense of humor and big fucking sticks up their asses."

278

Robin and Luffy had managed to carve their way up to the driveway, but the front porch wasn't quite as spread out as the rest of the outpost. The zombies were packed like sardines against the window, clawing aimlessly to get inside. The living duo couldn't just shoulder past like they normally would. There simply wasn't enough room to do so.

Robin grabbed Luffy by the collar and tried to pull him toward the side yard. "Come on, we'll go around back and get in that way."

"But this way is shorter!"

"Luffy, we cannot fit up there." She tugged him away from the porch just as machine gun fire sprayed from the window, downing some zombies and sending bullets sailing across the cul-de-sac. "See? Even if we go up through there, we'd just get shot."

Luffy scowled, but reluctantly let Robin lead him around the house.

Back at the van, Sanji looked around. The zombies were just starting to thin out, enough so that it was noticeable compared to the hell they first drove into. "Hey, you wanna drive into the driveway there and back them up? Looks like we're all converging there anyway," he asked her.

Baby flashed him her usual charming smile. "Absolutely! And may I say? This has been one of the better dates in my life~"

Sanji turned on the ignition and inched the van forward, bumping past the zombies that still cluttered the way. Baby reloaded the shotgun and climbed over the seat into the back to pull out the rest of the guns they brought. When Sanji settled in the driveway, they cleared out the handful or so in their immediate area and then simultaneously climbed out of the car and scrambled onto the hood. Well, Sanji scrambled. Baby gracefully swung her leg up, brought the rest of her body up, and then similarly swung onto the roof of the car in one fluid motion.

They were both sitting on the roof of the van, not unlike a romantic moonlit picnic where they would eventually get to third base. Except it was midday and there were zombies everywhere, so no time for groping _yet_. Sanji, curious to see what would happen, fired off one of the flare guns at a zombie. The flare embedded itself in the zombie's eye socket, and it didn't seem to even notice the sudden intrusion until the flare actually detonated, causing most of its face to burn off. Its skull illuminated for a brief moment, creating a real life Ghost Rider, before its brain scrambled enough to bring it to the ground.

"Ooohh…" both of them cooed simultaneously.

This action would mark the beginning of what Bonney referred to as the Last Stand. All nine of them, now equipped and gathered in one location, against the remaining 272 zombies still wandering around Little Garden. Oh wait, did I say 272? I meant 221. Almost forgot about Franky's group…


	19. Chapter 18

Chapter 18: Around the same time as the end of Chapter 17, but in a different location

The real difficulty of herding zombies was finding the right balance between staying at a safe distance, but also staying close enough that they stayed interested. Leading a herd of 51 zombies through the subdivision was difficult. Perona had to stay on active shouting duty to keep their attention, because if they started wandering off, it would defeat the whole purpose of the exercise. Franky was glad to pull out onto a clear, open, main road and was also glad to see the cluster following after them. Perona could finally stop screaming, which both Franky and Law were grateful for. Law, a little bit more outwardly grateful than Franky.

When the dead were clustered in the main road, Franky pulled ahead a fair distance, then swerved in the middle of the street, turning the Frankystein around to face the horde head on.

"Y'know what I miss?" He asked his passengers.

"... What?" Perona asked after it became clear Law wouldn't.

"Bowling," he flashed that crazy smile to both of them.

It took a minute for the two of them to realize what he was suggesting. "Nnnnno," Law protested. "You can't be serious."

"Super serious!" Franky gripped the steering wheel, psyching himself up. And then he relaxed a little. "Actually… Maybe one of you should do it. I can't have all the fun to myself. Law, what's your score?"

Law rolled his eyes. "Should we really be worried about that right now?! I don't play the stupid game anyway."

"Mine's 487!" Perona said.

Franky looked shocked. "That's all?! Get up here, kiddo, we're doing something about that!"

Perona squealed with delight as Franky shifted to the passenger seat and helped her climb to the front. When they were situated, he reminded them to buckle up. "Safety first. Especially since you're gonna wanna floor it to get the right speed."

Perona bounced giddily in her seat, while Law braced himself for takeoff. "Is this safe?! This can't be safe!" He said.

"Nah, I've done it before! We'll be fine!"

Perona and the tires both squealed as she slammed on the accelerator. The jeep lurched forward with its usual sluggishness, but built up speed before long. Law closed his eyes and braced himself for impact while Franky cheered Perona on. They made contact with the sound of wet splattering and ragged groans. Chunks of zombie splattered onto the windshield and intestines flew as several zombies were impaled on the spikes. Perona carved a beautiful chunk out of their numbers, and when Perona slammed on the brakes, the Frankystein fishtailed like it was on ice, due to all the blood on the wheels.

"THAT WAS SO MUCH FUN!" Perona shrieked. "Again, again! I wanna do it again!"

Law, shivering in the background, allowed his eyes to open when he felt he was clear of danger. He was paralyzed in the backseat, willing his body to move. "I want to get off Mr. Franky's Wild Ride…" he muttered.

"Great work, P! Come on, if we hurry back, we can probably lure another big chunk away!" Franky said.

"Yeah! Assuming everyone is still alive!" Law reminded them.

Back at Little Garden, we still had Krieg, Vergo, and Monet hanging out up on the balcony. Now, they had done shit-all to help clear the outpost, but it's not like our heroes would've really been glad to see them help anyway. The important thing was that all of the gunfire around Zoro and Bonney's place meant the area around the entrance was starting to clear up, as zombies shuffled their way to the source of the noise.

The RV was pretty much toast, but the jeep with the minigun was still functional. "Alright, let's move on out!" Krieg said once he was confident they could make it. They scaled the ladder and snuck across the road to the center of the cul-de-sac. The only two who could've seen them were Sanji and Baby, and they were preoccupied with the zombies swarming their van. They weren't paying attention.

In fact, the duo didn't notice until Krieg and his men had actually made it to the jeep and piled in. Krieg hopped behind the wheel, Vergo in the passenger seat, and Monet operating the now-depleted turret. "OH THOSE SONS OF BITCHES! THEY'RE STILL ALIVE!" Sanji roared. He opened fire on them, but the shots went wide. The zombies trying to feast on them were rocking the van too much to get a clear shot on the target.

Krieg started the jeep and laughed maniacally. "AHAHAHA! SO LONG, IDJITS! BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME!" He pulled off a perfect three-point turn as bullets flew past and he headed for the entrance.

As they pulled out past the gate, Sanji cursed and pounded the roof of the car. "Shit! Fucking SHIT he's getting away!" The van continued shaking and Sanji reluctantly turned his attention back to the zombies.

209

Krieg actually wasn't getting away. He didn't get very far past the gate before being forced to stop. Perona had rounded the corner first, in the Frankystein, and now the two were facing off, both at opposite ends of the street.

Franky glared at the other jeep. Krieg was frozen in uncertainty. The Frankystein was blocking the road, no way of driving around it. Krieg's jeep was also blocking the entrance. No way to drive around it.

"Floor it," Franky said, leaning toward Perona.

"What?" She asked.

"What?!" Law asked, a little louder.

"Floor it. Trust me, we'll win."

Perona hesitated for a second, then shrugged her shoulders. "If you say so!" She slammed on the gas and tore down the street, squealing tires like a battlecry. Krieg watched in horror as the armored, spiked version of his own vehicle charged him like a bull seeing red. (Actually that's a misnomer, bulls are drawn by the motion of the cape, not the color red)

Fumbling with the gearshift for a moment, he threw the jeep in reverse. He tried backing into the safety of the cul-de-sac, where he'd have more room to maneuver, but it was too late. Just as he was starting to back up, the Frankystein made contact. The weaker jeep crumpled underneath the superior strength of the Frankystein. The front was pierced by the spikes, and the few zombies still skewered were absolutely pancaked. Both jeeps suffered damage, but Frankystein won this round handily.

Krieg and his men bounced around like ragdolls from the impact and subsequent push back through the gates. No one got it worse than Monet, who was flung from the minigun and landed flat on her back, on the hard pavement. She groaned in pain and found herself unable to stand. Krieg and Vergo were in a daze, suffering from whiplash among other things.

"And that, kids, is why you always wear your seatbelt," said Franky. "Now, could you pass me that toolbox back there, Law?" Leaning over the seat, he gestured underneath it, to a red metallic toolbox that sat on the floor of the jeep.

"Planning on fixing it up now?" Law said like a smartass, handing him the box.

Franky shook his head. "Not exactly! I'm fixing something, though. Fixing to kick some ass!" Toolbox in hand, he climbed out of the Frankystein and strolled over to Krieg's side of the jeep. Still recovering, Krieg could barely fight back as Franky opened the door and hauled him out, tossing him to the ground along with Monet. He did the same with Vergo, leaving all three groaning on the ground.

Franky motioned for Perona and Law to join him, occasionally glancing over at the carnage happening across the way. The gunfire and zombie groans were still providing the worst kind of background music for the scene. He needed to hurry, or he'd miss the action… "C'mon! You two watch these guys, make sure they don't do anything dumb!"

Reluctantly, the duo climbed out and shuffled to their new captives. Franky rifled through the toolbox and handed Law a rubber mallet, and Perona a claw hammer. "They try anything, eh… smack 'em around." He armed himself with a heavy-duty pipe wrench. "I super got some work to do myself."

Law and Perona were more than happy to guard the wounded individuals than throw themselves unprotected into the zombie fray. They let Franky go off to be a hero like the others while they stayed back.

187

While Franky and the others took care of Krieg's men, zombie disposal was going _swimmingly_. Robin and Luffy arrived through the back door and Robin unloaded more of the guns and ammo she brought with her. With everyone properly loaded, the "heavy hitters" cleared back outside, if for no other reason than to keep the house from becoming even more of a nightmare festival.

Zoro, Bonney, and Robin all retreated back outside, only this time circling around to the front of the house instead of running to someone else's property. Luffy helped Nami stay on her feet by wrapping her arm over his shoulders and lifting her up. Coby and Vivi, now armed with guns themselves, no longer had to wait for zombies to claw at the open window to dispose of them. The four had the world's most morbid double date inside the house while the others fought outside.

153

Okay so to be honest, none of them were really at all ready for living enemies. Humans could plan and strategize and prepare options. But zombies, they could deal with, no problem. Once Robin, Zoro, Bonney, and Franky regrouped around Zoro's front yard, Sanji and Baby felt comfortable enough to slide off the roof of the van and join them. The six of them left the crowd huddled around the balcony to the four inside and got to work clearing out the stragglers still scattered around the rest of Little Garden. They moved as a single unit, watching each other's backs, ensuring no angle was uncovered.

Franky, Robin, and Zoro got to work hacking and bashing anything in sight. Franky had the shortest range out of all of them, but he made up for it by having bite-proof arms. In fact, he laughed when a zombie managed to get a hold of his wrist and pull it towards its mouth. "Yeah, super nice try, buddy!" He chuckled before swinging the pipe wrench hard enough to take its skullcap off.

Baby and Sanji remained as close as they could be, back to back as they fired upon the zombies off in the distance. "Hell of a date, right? Like you said?" Sanji said to her.

"Oh I think this date's far from over, Sanji~ When this is over, I have a few ideas~" she said back to him.

He chanced a glance over his shoulder to make sure he was hearing her right. "It uh… Sounds to me like… You're getting a little hot over all this carnage."

"Are you saying you aren't? Oh, Sanji, let me tell you what all this bloodshed makes me want to do!"

Fortunately, Franky, Zoro, and Bonney didn't understand French, so all of this was lost on them. Robin did, though, and while beheading a zombie, she allowed herself to glare over at them. "Please, for all our sakes, keep it together until the bodies are all stationary."

102

The pile of bodies on the front porch was getting a little ridiculous. More and more zombies were actually starting to claw at the front door, rather than trying to climb over their fallen comrades and the four inside the house gave each other wary looks as they realized what they would have to do to continue the extermination. Well, Nami, Vivi, and Coby looked wary. Luffy looked excited.

He carefully helped Nami lean against a wall, a fair distance away from the door. Coby and Vivi stood with her, all within perfect eyesight of the front door. Luffy moved the chair away from it and leaned against it in the chair's place. The door was already rattling from the zombies leaning and clawing at it. He braced himself, turned the handle, and swung it open. Zombies lurched forward and he immediately got to work, bringing his knife down into one, two, three, as they filtered in like the worst kind of funnel. When they got too overwhelming for just one kid, he backed himself up toward the others and traded the knife for the pistol.

Four people with guns could easily take care of the zombies coming through the door. It was like target practice. Even if one of them missed, there were three more to pick up the slack. In fact, they were all confident enough in their ability to succeed that Coby could exhale sharply and say "So, let's maybe talk about what you just said?"

"We will! Later! Right now is really not a good time!" Vivi shouted back.

"Well, when WILL be a good time?! I'm starting to think you like making me stew like this! Is this the _talk_ you wanted to have when we first got here?!"

"Can we deal with these first?!"

Luffy leaned toward Nami. "Hey, what are they talking about?"

Letting out a disgruntled sigh, Nami said "Nothing. Let's never have kids, alright?"

He gave her a confused look, but just said "Okay."

With both groups working together like this, the zombie numbers depleted down to 0 just as the sun was starting to set. After so many hours with snarling and groaning, the outpost now seemed eerily quiet. The four in the house headed outside to regroup with the others and the current state of their outpost was a shock. The ground was littered with corpses, splatters of blood and gore and organs littered the streets and yards. It felt like everything was coated in a fine, greasy layer of red. If this were any other context, the twelve of them would be immediately gunned down as culprits of the most horrific mass-murder in history. But their victims were all just zombies so who cared.

"This is gonna be a fuckin' bitch to clean up…" Bonney huffed as she surveyed the damage. Aside from body disposal, they also had some structural damage to the houses. The gate that had been keeping them safe still lay on the ground instead of in its rollers like it should, and there were wrecked vehicles in the middle of the street. And of course, there was still the matter of what to do with Krieg and his hooligans.

The three of them were sitting up, still under the guard of Law and Perona. After being flung around in a car wreck, they weren't eager to start running anytime soon anyway. But just to be extra-careful, the other ten members of Little Garden trained their weapons on the prisoners.

Krieg cleared his throat and looked up at everyone else. "Y'know, in a way… I'm the victim here."

"How the SHIT are you the victim?!" Sanji yelled.

"I didn't get what I wanted."

In the end, Little Garden decided that straight up executing someone while they were on their knees is a little too distasteful. However, ironic punishment was totally fair game. The plan would be to drive these three back to the three other morons presumably still handcuffed to each other back at Krieg's camp, loot all of their stuff save for one of the RVs, and send them on their way.

For good measure, they would be left with the busted-ass RV. Which, despite everything, was still operational. It was technically operational in the same way that the Virtual Boy was technically a portable device, but that just made it all the more of a punishment.

Krieg, Monet, and Vergo were stripped of everything barring the clothes on their backs and unceremoniously tossed into the RV for transport. Baby drove, while Robin and Zoro stayed on guard duty in the back. Sanji stayed behind because, and I quote "I don't really care to see Krieg and Gin off on their next stupid voyage, and I don't know any of the others. I just want this shit over with."

They arrived at Krieg's former camp to find it pretty much undisturbed. Helmeppo. Gin, and Caribou were still handcuffed to each other inside the RV. Helmeppo burst into tears of gratitude when the door swung open and Baby stepped inside. "OH THANK GOD! PLEASE LET US GO! I've had to pee for like three hours!"

Baby sneered at him and whistled for Zoro to escort him away to deal with that. In the meantime, she and Robin transferred the prisoners to the shit RV. They didn't bother explaining what was going on just yet because it had been a long day and they really weren't interested in it yet. Instead, they shoved the five (and then six when Helmeppo got back) of them into the back bedroom of the RV while Baby sat in the front and kept guard. There was enough distance between her and the prisoners that if any of them did try to make some kind of move, she'd have ample time to put them down. "You see," she said, staring pointedly at Gin from across the way, "I am not close to you, so you cannot try to trick and incapacitate me. It is, how you say, zhe smart zhing to do."

They sat in silence while Zoro and Robin ran back and forth, loading up whatever supplies were around. Baby sat there bouncing her leg and idly toying with the pistol in her hand. She barely took the time out of staring at them to even blink. When the sun had solidly passed beyond the horizon and the stars were the only light available, Robin opened the door and leaned in. We're all loaded up here. It's time."

At that point, the two ladies dragged their prisoners back outside and lined them up along the RV, so they could see what had happened. It didn't take long to realize all of their gear was missing, packed up on another RV. That didn't bother Krieg, though. What did bother him was seeing someone behind the wheel of his Eldorado. Zoro honked the horn and grinned a smug grin at him.

Baby snapped her fingers and drew his attention again. There they were, lined up side by side with their wrists bound behind their back and she was like a drill sergeant in a frilly skirt. "If it is not obvious already, we are robbing you. We are taking your zhings because you attacked us and destroyed our gate and led a fuckton of zombies into our home. So we are stranding you here wizh nozhing, because zhat is what you did to my Sanji all zhose years ago."

"Uh- I-I don't mean to interrupt, miss-!" Helmeppo stammered like a coward. "B-but I wasn't, ah, there for that!"

"Me neither! I had no part in that! I joined up while they were traveling!" Caribou said, laughing awkwardly.

Baby pursed her lips. "I am aware of zhat. Only zhese two were part of _zhat_ group," she said, gesturing to Krieg and Gin with her pistol. She faced them, really eyeing them up and down. "And yet, after everyzhing, Sanji is willing to spare you. Is zhat not interesting?"

The glare she was giving Krieg would have made him feel guilty, if he were actually capable of feeling that.

"You see, my Sanji… He is a good. Man."

Krieg started to say something, but shut his mouth when Baby pressed the barrel of her pistol against his forehead. "I am neizher of zhose zhings."

Bang and then bang. Krieg and Gin were dead before anyone had any time to react. When their bodies hit the ground, the other four prisoners recoiled in legitimate terror. "AS FOR ZHE REST OF YOU!" She snapped and they all recoiled even more. "Go on. Get out of here. Never come back to zhis place. Never bozher us again."

"Yeah! No problem! Wh-whatever you say, miss!" Helmeppo squeaked, sweat pouring from his forehead.

"Yep! We will take that offer and we will be on our way!" Monet quickly added. "Oh and by the way, uh what you said earlier? You're definitely the hotter, more threatening one."

Baby and Robin ushered the four survivors into the RV and tossed the keys in afterwards. Eventually the RV shuddered to life and groaned its way out onto the street. The trio watched it go and once its tail lights were no longer visible, Robin cleared her throat and gestured to the bodies. "So."

Baby rolled her eyes. "What? Are you telling me you have an issue wizh zhat?"

"It was a sweet gesture, you doing Sanji a favor like that," Robin said, shaking her head in bemused disbelief.

Zoro shrugged from inside the Eldorado, still grinning. "You are pretty cool, Baby 5."


	20. Chapter 19

Chapter 19: 17 days after arriving in Little Garden

It took two days to clear all the bodies out of Little Garden. They worked around the clock, dragging the corpses out past the open gate and dragging them to a nearby backyard with an inground pool. The bodies were dumped in the hole one by one and doused in gasoline. They had to be burned in shifts, to keep the pool from getting too full and yes it was about as morbid and off-putting as you would expect it to be.

Bonney and Zoro had the worst of it. They threw out all their furniture from the main room and did their best to scrub the blood off. But that room was going to be slightly red from now until eternity. As for the window, they ended up just duct-taping a sheet in front of the frame until they could find some kind of replacement.

On top of that, there was no way the twelve of them could properly reset the gate without outside help. They had to wing it by parking the RVs in front of the opening and keep someone on guard at all times. They bumped the patrols up to three people per shift and just for good measure, Franky went ahead and boarded up all the windows in the nearby houses.

When all the corpses were cleared out, Vivi was officially out of excuses when Coby decided to man up and actually confront her about what she said. They were back in the privacy of their own home, the yard free of dead bodies and internal organs. Coby was sitting on the couch and Vivi was laying on it, with her legs laid across his lap. "So, let's talk about this," he managed to say without stammering. He swallowed hard. There was no need to clarify what "this" meant.

Vivi sucked in a breath. "Alright. Well… So, I brought a bunch of pregnancy tests with me from Funkytown. And I've been using them every so often, y'know… Just to be sure. So… A couple days ago, one of them came up positive."

She could feel Coby tense up underneath her. As much as he tried not to, it was only natural. "But!" She quickly added, "I used another one a little while later and it came up negative! So… I didn't mention it or anything." Coby relaxed a little. "But then," and he was back to tensing up, "I used one that morning before we were attacked, and _that_ one was positive too."

He tried his hardest to stay calm, but she knew him better and could clearly tell he was unnerved. She propped herself up on her elbows to study his reaction. "W-well, if you got one false positive, you could just get two. Those tests are like six years old anyway. What's the shelf life on them?"

"There's also the fact that I'm, uh, _late_. So."

"Ah."

"Are you upset?" She couldn't exactly tell what he was feeling, but he didn't look excited. She couldn't blame him, but it still hurt.

"N-no, no I'm not upset. I mean, this is what we wanted, right? It's just a little earlier than we planned. I thought we were being as careful as possible."

Vivi huffed and blew the bangs out of her face. "I guess not careful enough."

"We just have to figure out what to do."

She raised her eyebrow. "What to do? I thought I already told you. I want to stay right here. I don't like the idea of anything forcing me out of my home. Especially not my baby."

"Good thing we have a doctor here, then…" He was smiling at her now. Sure the smile was mostly a worried one, backed by a fear of the worst possible outcome of his wife being pregnant. But he was still smiling at her.

"Besides," she said, smiling right back at him. "No one tells a pregnant woman what to do. That's just plain rude."

Of course, they would have to tell Law and Perona about it, which was an adventure in of itself. Perona responded by screaming like a banshee and wrapping her arms around Vivi like a koala out of sheer happiness. Law responded by mumbling angrily to himself. Coby could barely hear him, but it sounded like a list. With Vivi trapped underneath Perona's death grip and her attention forcibly pulled to babblings about being picked as godmother and a list of totes adorbs names, it was up to Coby to ask what Law was talking about.

"You can… handle this, right?" He asked hesitantly.

"What? Oh. Yeah of course. I've helped deliver babies before. I just had more equipment and… better help. Shit. Shit, no I can do this though. Fuck. Okay we're going to need some stuff. _Shit_. No, she's gonna be fine. She will. Trust me. Fuck, okay."

So they were in for some serious shit, but we don't have the kind of time to deal with that in its entirety, so we'll save it for next time. What we do have time for is

28 days after arriving in Little Garden

The four plus hour long drive from Funkytown to Little Garden would have been hell on earth for Nojiko if she didn't have Usopp as her co-driver. Usopp had, as far as she was concerned, the greatest taste in music ever. So the entire trip had been spent with him flipping through his CD collection to satisfy all of her requests.

As the last of Redbone's "Come and Get Your Love" faded out, she slapped at Usopp's arm. "Oh dude! Dude, we're almost there!" She said, pulling off of the highway exit marked on their handwritten directions.

"Sweeeeeeet! Oh, right! I have the perfect song for when we get there!" He unzipped the big CD binder and flipped through the pages. "Where is it…"

Nojiko drummed excitedly on the steering wheel as he pulled one CD from its sleeve and slid it in. She listened as the heavy bass line kicked in and knew instantly what it was. "Ohhhh shiiiiiit!"

They both looked at each other before belting out the lyrics in the hardest voices they could manage.

" _YEAH DON'T GET IT TWISTED_

 _THIS RAP SHIT IS MINE!_

 _MOTHERFUCKER, IT'S NOT. A FUCKING. GAME._

 _FUCK WHAT YOU HEARD_

 _IT'S WHAT YOU HEARING"_

" _It's what you hearing"_ she said, and he followed up with " _Listen"_

Nojiko turned into the subdivision and Usopp rolled down the windows, cranking the volume knob as high as it could go. Hancock would have been proud of them announcing their presence in such a manner. She probably would've appreciated the song.

They couldn't hear themselves over the pickup truck's speakers, but they still sang along anyway.

" _X GON' GIVE IT TO YA_

 _FUCK WAITIN' FOR YOU TO GET IT ON YA OWN_

 _X GON' DELIVER TO YA_

 _KNOCK KNOCK OPEN UP THE DOOR IT'S REAL_

 _WITH THE NON-STOP, POP POP, AND STAINLESS STEEL_ "

They could hear the music at the outpost, of course they could. They couldn't hear what it was at first, but the three guards, Luffy, Franky, and Coby, all raced to the entrance to see whatever the hell was making that noise. Everyone else found themselves drawn outside, curious as well. As it became more clear that it was in fact, DMX's "X Gon' Give it to Ya", Robin actually wondered aloud if Hancock was visiting them.

"No, she'd play something more… I dunno, grandiose," Law said.

"Is there something more grandiose than DMX?" She asked.

When the truck parked itself in front of the two RVs that made up the fence, Usopp turned the music down and Nojiko leaned out of the window. "HEEEEYYY! WHERE'S MY BABY SISTER?"

Luffy and Coby both lit up immediately. "Aaah! It's Nojiko!" Luffy cheered.

This prompted Usopp to make his presence known as well. He emerged from his side of the truck and waved up at Luffy. "Hey, I'm here too, man!"

"AAAHH! IT'S USOPP!" Luffy cheered even louder.

Franky brought their newly rightfully obtained walkie-talkie to his face and called for someone to "open the gate", which meant getting into the RVS and driving them apart from each other to allow the truck to pass. Once it did, they drove back together, accidentally colliding, which tended to happen when you used two cars as a barrier.

Once they were inside, Nojiko swung the door open and scanned the crowd for a sign of orange hair. Upon finding her target, she heat-seeking-missile charged her and threw her arms around her baby sister, nearly tackling her to the ground.

Nami squealed laughing as she stumbled to regain her footing. "Wait, wait! I'm injured, you can't do that!" This wasn't exactly true, her leg was healing up nicely and she had little more than a limp now, but she was sort of milking it to get out of the hard work around the outpost. At least for a little while longer.

Luffy was similarly tackling Usopp and the others were gathering around the truck to see what kind of presents Santa brought them this time. While Sanji hopped up onto the bed of the truck and offered Baby a hand up, Nojiko broke the hug to look Nami over. "Injured? What happened?!"

Nami rolled her eyes. "Oh God, where do I even begin? Ever since we got here, it's been nonstop." She peeked over Nojiko's shoulder. "Guys, come on! It's not Christmas morning, stop playing with the gear and just unload the truck!"

Bonney shouted at her from the other side of the truck, "You're not our fuckin boss! You don't get to tell us what to do while you sit on your ass all day!"

"I'm injured!"

"Fuuuuck you!"

Nami wordlessly gestured to Bonney while looking at Nojiko. Her older sister tried and failed to hide her laughter. "Alright, come on. Tell me what you've been up to, then."

"Where do you want me to start? There's Franky's crazy monstrosity he built, there's the southern… preacher… politician that attacked us, there's Vivi getting knocked up, Sanji getting a girlfriend, me getting shot…"

When Nami made eye contact with her big sister again, Nojiko's eyes were wide and her mouth was hanging open. "You haven't even been gone a month!"

While Nami started summing up the events of the story you just read, Sanji and Baby got to work tossing down the loot to be sorted away. There was the usual resupply of bullets and new clothes. Sanji marveled at a cooler full of fresh vegetables. "Man, it would be so nice if we could get a garden going… Franky! What do you think about that?" He asked, passing it down to him.

"I bet we could float that! I can super start writing up some sketches!" Franky beamed. Anything he could work on with his bare hands, he was all for.

"Sanji! Sanji, Sanji, come look!" Baby suddenly squealed, bouncing on her heels. Sanji sidled up next to her and looked down at the cardboard box she had opened. It was full of homemade and recycled cigarette packs. The two of them clasped hands and looked at each other in perfect harmony. Baby's foot even popped up. "Oh darling, we are saved! It is zhe… how you say, mozherlode!"

At this point, Nami pointed to them for Nojiko's sake. "See what I mean? It's weird, right?"

"Oh my God, she _likes_ him. She knows what he's like, right?"

"She's into it. It's sort of cute, though!"

Sanji and Baby started to pocket some of the packs and Usopp frantically waved his arms. "HEY HEY! THOSE AREN'T ALL FOR YOU! All of the boxes marked with black tape are for Empress Hancock's people in DC! Part of the arrangement, remember?!"

"You know what? That reminds me," it was apparently Law's turn to speak. "We need to set up some kind of smoking area for you guys. I'm not letting people poison the air around my pregnant patient."

"A smoking area? What are we, in high school? Go behind the shed to light up?" Sanji scoffed.

"Yes, exactly. You shouldn't be smoking anyway. Have you seen what it does to your body?"

"All of us had zhe healzh class in school, Law. We are aware of zhe bad lung pictures," Baby said dismissively. "It is too late now, anyway. We are hooked."

Franky, still carrying the cooler of food, but having stopped to listen to the conversation, said "Y'know, I bet I could build a shed and turn it into, like, a smoking parlor…"

"Alright, while you hash that out, I'm gonna go show Nojiko where she's staying!" Nami said, finger-gunning at the group. It earned her a few dirty looks. "I can't do heavy lifting! Law, back me up!"

And now the attention was on Law, which he hated. "It… is not recommended that the patient overexert themselves while recovering. Now, that being said-"

"See? Doctor's orders!" And with that Nami grabbed Nojiko by the wrist and led her to her house. Bonney flipped off the back of her head, but was distracted when Sanji mentioned he found a box of comic books.

Nami brought Nojiko inside and gave her a brief tour of the place. Not that there was much to show, but she could point out the bullet holes in the outside walls at least. "So… you and Luffy live here?" Nojiko asked.

Nami shrugged as nonchalantly as she could muster. "Yeah but if Mom asks, then it's me and Robin. How's life back home anyway?"

Nojiko swallowed hard. Her expression suddenly turned serious and her shoulders dropped. "Nami, there's… Something I gotta tell you about Mom."

Nami felt her chest tighten up. Nojiko looked away, almost shamefully. "Some… people showed up while you were gone. There was this… incident…" she had to force the word out. And now Mom is… She's… Dating again." A smile slowly spread across Nojiko's face as she brought her eyes back to look at Nami.

It took Nami a second to process what her sister had said, and when it finally clicked, Nami shoved her as hard as she could. "YOU ASS! You can't do that shit to me!"

Nojiko burst out laughing, "Come on, it was funny!"

"No it's not! That's so not funny, you dickbag!" Even though she was doubled over with laughter herself. When they managed to calm themselves down, Nami raised her head to look at Nojiko. "So wait, Mom's really dating again?"

Nojiko shrugged, "Something like that? Some guys really did show up. Hancock brought them up on one of her visits. They've been having a lot of private meetings and stuff, but I thiiiink they're trying to work out an arrangement or something? They're from another big settlement and they want in on our little system. You might be getting some neighbors."

"Ugh, really?" Nami groaned. "I don't want neighbors. We've had bad experiences with strangers around here."

Nojiko shrugged. "These ones are pretty cool. They're like a group of… really hot adventurer guys. A lot of them don't wear shirts and it is appreciated."

"I already have a hot adventurer guy, I don't need any more."

"Sounds like you don't need any more adventure either. You sure you're good here, sis? From what you told me, I wouldn't blame you for wanting to come back home."

"I dunno. I mean, yeah sometimes it sucks, but I feel like I'm doing something out here, at least. I'm not just hiding out at home. These last few weeks have been the most insane shit ever since… Well, the last time I left home." She shrugged. "It feels good to be here. Even with all the crap happening."

"Cool," Nojiko said. "Just make sure you don't get shot again."

So that's the end of that chapter. We can close the book on that one particular portion of their lives. But that doesn't mean the whole thing's over, of course not. Don't be ridiculous.

I mean, come on. Vivi's pregnant. We gotta follow up on that. And Law has his whole deal. You thought I forgot about that, eh? Nah, we'll get to that. These kinds of stories, they don't really _have_ a definitive end anyway. One part just leads into another and we go from there. It ends when you feel like you've read enough.

But this part's over. I'm ending it here.

Later.


End file.
